Jun 30, 2015 3 min read

SAN FRANCISCO – CBS’ “Zoo” has more than enough edge-of-your-seat drama to make it feel like the television equivalent of great summer beach reading.

Premiering Tuesday night and based on the best-seller of the same name by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge, the series credibly imagines what would happen if the animal kingdom up and said, essentially, we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore.

The always adaptable James Wolk stars as Jackson Oz, an American zoologist who leads tours in Botswana when he’s not drinking himself to sleep. His father (Ken Olin) was a great scientist whose controversial theories about animal behavior drove him to madness, or that’s the prevailing belief anyway.

Back in the U.S., a young reporter named Jamie Campbell (Kristen Connolly) works for a newspaper with more than 4 million readers. So, obviously, this is a work of science fiction.

Anyway, Jamie gets in trouble with her boss Brenda Montgomery (Tamara Tunie) because she’s been secretly authorizing a blog targeting a huge multinational corporation with all kinds of bad things and, of course, the company’s assets include the newspaper with the 4 million readers.

But to the frustration of her direct boss (and secret overnight guest) Ethan Boyd (Reid Scott), Jamie won’t give up her crusade, which leads her to investigate why a couple of lions suddenly went bonkers and decided to go out for lunch. Jamie meets up with animal pathologist Mitch Morgan (Billy Burke) who generally prefers animals to people. She mentions in passing that a bunch of cats have disappeared in Brentwood, and things progress from there, just as they do back in Africa where Jackson and his friend Abraham Kenyatta (Nonso Anozie) are on their way to find out why no one’s responding to radio calls to a tour group.

To some extent, we can figure out what’s going on here, of course, but instead of ruining the suspense, our deductions actually heighten it. Someone brings a gun on stage, you wait for it to go off. Same thing here: A pride of lions start circling in the brush and it’s getting close to dinner time.

At this point, we know more than the characters, although Jamie and Jackson are beginning to suspect something’s not right in the animal kingdom. What we don’t know, though, is the extent of the animals’ massive mood swing and what’s caused it.

Brad Anderson has skillfully directed the pilot, eliciting strong and credible performances from every member of the cast. The animals either know their motivation or are CGI’d into credible nibbling position with the human cast members.

The show has a kind of “Indiana Jones” appeal, in the relationship between Jackson and his late father, and in the sense of pure, old-fashioned adventure that pervades the first episode.

There’s romance! Danger! Hungry, hungry lions and no doubt hippos and other critters lying in wait in future episodes.

“Zoo” is a show with animal magnetism.