WALKING DEAD Season One Recap

As I type this, the DVD set of the first season of THE WALKING DEAD is on sale at Amazon for $9.99.  That's practically too cheap to pass up, even if you're only slightly interested in checking it out.

If anyone's curious, here's what I thought about the season, episode by episode:

1.1 "Days Gone Bye"

1.2 "Guts"

1.3 "Tell it to the Frogs"

1.4 "Vatos"

1.5 "Wildfire"

1.6 "TS-19"

THE WALKING DEAD Episode 1.06 Review

The Walking Dead
Episode 1.06 "TS-19"
Written by Adam Fierro & Frank Darabont
Directed by Guy Ferland

And with that, we say goodbye to our cast of characters until sometime next year. 

And it's going to be a long year.  But not as long as it could have been, thanks to the convenient tying up of narrative lines that, if there had only been one season, would have been a nice, if bleak, open ending.  Instead, it serves as a way to start the Second Season with something of a clean slate. 

I'm a little surprised that the episode wrapped up as neatly as it did, to be honest.  And with nary a zombie in sight.

I was expecting some sort of crazy scientist twist, with Dr. Jenner (Noah Emmerich) deliberately infecting someone to continue his research into a cure, or something along those lines.  Instead we get something a little more believable, a little less melodramatic (in a pulpy way), and a little more disturbing.

Spoiler Shields On.

THE WALKING DEAD Episode 1.05 Review

The Walking Dead
1.05 "Wildfire"
Directed by Ernest R. Dickerson
Written by Glen Mazzara

I'm writing this just minutes after watching the latest episode of The Walking Dead, so I'm not sure how coherent it's going to be.  Up to this point, it's been kind of easy to discuss the show, since I've been intimately familiar with the comic and love the entire genre of zombie narratives.  Sure, a lot of the field is awful.  But there are gems in there, to be sure.

The best works tend to deal with the people realistically.  Which means with all the tragedy, anxiety, hope, fear, humor, successes, and failures.  That's one of the things that The Walking Dead does best in its comic format, and it's one of the things that the TV series is shaping up to do best, too.

Most of this episode is straight out of the comic, but we're getting a huge plot shift here, and I'm not sure how to react to it just yet.

Get your Spoiler Shields up, and let's see if I can figure out what it is I want to say.

THE WALKING DEAD Episode 1.04 Review

This episode is entitled "Vatos" and was written by Robert Kirkman, the co-creator and writer of The Walking Dead comic upon which the series is based.

Earlier this week, I spent the day re-reading the early issues of the comic, and was surprised to find just how close the pacing was between the source material and the television series.  There are changes, sure.  Some are pretty substantial changes, but key plot points are being hit in the show at just about the same pace as they were in the comic, with each issue corresponding pretty closely to the episode breakdown.

All of which is to say that I knew what was coming with tonight's episode of The Walking Dead.  For the most part.  But I have to admit, even though I knew what was coming (and hell, the previews were enough to let anyone paying attention know), it didn't lessen the impact.

Spoiler Screens Up!

THE WALKING DEAD: COMPARE & CONTRAST

I spent my day today (in between answering phone calls at my crappy job) re-reading the first 24 issues of The Walking Dead.  This is the first time I've gone back to these comics since reading them for the first time.  The first issue was released all the way back in October of 2003, so we're talking about quite a bit of time between then and now.

Well, the biggest surprise is that I remembered those comics in absurd detail.  I hadn't forgotten a single page in the past 7 years.  Part of the reason for that is that writer Robert Kirkman did a fantastic job of crafting scene after scene of horror and dread and psychological portraiture.  That's really the main strength of the comics over the first three episodes of the TV show.

The characters in the comic are constructed to carefully avoid cliches.  However, because of the emphasis on character, a weakness does become apparent after a while.  And it's not even much of a weakness, but is a repercussion of working in the comics medium.  The characters are too damn talky at times for my tastes.  It didn't bother me the first time through, before I was familiar with the characters and their personalities, but this time around, it was a little tedious.

This is probably one of the main reasons the television show incorporated more broad-stroke characterization over the first two episodes, at least with the newer characters.  But in a world where you can't swing your dick without hitting a zombie narrative, this isn't really a problem in the grand scheme of things.  That both versions are at least trying to focus on character before gore is where the real strength of the story lies.  Particularly given the fact that the gore isn't avoided at all.  This is why, I think, The Walking Dead connected with so many readers and is now connecting with so many viewers.

THE WALKING DEAD Episode 1.03 Review

The Walking Dead
1.03 "Tell It To The Frogs"
Director: Gwyneth Horder-Payton
Writers: Frank Darabont, Charles H. Eglee, & Jack LoGiudice

If it's going to take a committee of writers to keep the quality up, then by all means, bring on the committees.

After the ham-handed dialogue and broad-stroke characterization of "Guts" I was seriously worried about the quality control on this series.  I know they went into it with only a six-episode commitment, which couldn't have been good for their confidence.  I know that they probably wanted to get the show off and running and felt they could afford to take some short-cuts here and there in order to get into the meat of the show.

But I'll be damned if last week wasn't painful to watch at times.  It got better once they moved beyond the character "work" on the roof and concentrated on the logistics of getting out of Atlanta alive, but there were definite cracks in the foundation of The Walking Dead.

Cracks that never showed up in other AMC series.

Well, this week, those cracks are patched up, sealed over, repainted, and/or whatever other construction metaphor you want to throw at it.

And yes, here come the Spoilers!

THE WALKING DEAD Episode 1.02 Review

I've been reading The Walking Dead since the day it premiered, back in 2003.  I haven't missed an issue.  There have been highs and lows in the comic, but overall, it is one of the most consistent series on the market, releasing its 79th issue this month.

But that's not why I'm watching The Walking Dead on AMC.

I'm of the school of thought that you can't let the source material influence one's critical reception of an adaptation.  You can't let the source material fill in the blanks that might be left in the adaptation.  The adaptation has to stand on its own.  So, I don't care about the comic when I'm watching the show.  The show is it's own entity.

I'm watching The Walking Dead on AMC because Frank Darabont can do no wrong.  Well, almost no wrong, but more about that later.  This is the man who gave us The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, after all.  But to be honest, I don't give a shit about that, either.  Never watched either film.  I understand that they are apparently great films, but I have no interest in them at all.

What won me over to the Darabont camp was The Mist.  Or, more specifically, the black and white version of The Mist.  If there is any kind of tentacled thingy up in the sky watching down on us and granting wishes, I'm going to go out on a limb and offer up something for a black and white release of The Walking Dead on Blu-ray/DVD.

It has to be.

But that's the future.  What about the now?  What about Episode 2, "Guts"?

Okay, let's talk about that, warts and all.

THE WALKING DEAD Episode 1.01 Review

THE WALKING DEAD (AMC) 1.01 "Days Gone By" Sunday 10:00
A group of survivors led by police officer Rick Grimes travel in search of a safe and secure home after a zombie apocalypse.


(With the news over the past day or two that AMC's The Walking Dead was the highest rated show EVER on AMC, and that it beat out just about everything else on TV Halloween night, I figured I'd go ahead and share my take on the pilot episode, as originally presented over on Comicsbulletin.com last week)

If you've ever read anything on this blog (especially around Easter), you know that I consider myself a connoisseur of zombie cinema. My tastes are distinctively my own, I admit, and what I look for in a zombie film may not be what you look for. For instance, gore is appreciated, but not a game-changer for me. A film with fantastic gore but little story, isn't going to make it high up my list.

I look for three things in a good zombie film. A unique approach to the medium and the concept of zombies. This is why Pontypool is one of my favorites. The idea of a zombie virus spread via language is something I'd never seen nor heard of before. It's also what makes Night of the Living Dead an uncontested classic. It changed the game. Hell, it invented the game.

Secondly, I appreciate a sense of humor, but not humor that overpowers the emotional impact of the horrific events going on. This is why Shaun of the Dead beats out every other film on my list as the favorite. And it's why Dead Alive lands in my top three. In both cases, the humor serves to illuminate character and emphasize the absurdity of each film's respective narratives. The humor humanizes the characters. But both films also bring the horror, and that's essential.

Lastly, we need characters and stakes that are presented realistically enough for them to matter. We need to care about these people and we need to believe that the threat is real. This is why the remake of Dawn of the Dead charts so highly for me; That sense of impending doom. When I left the theater after seeing that film for the first time, I could have easily walked right back inside and watched it again. It was invigorating. And oddly enough, it was the same with Shaun of the Dead. I cared about those characters.

They were, quite simply, the most believable characters I've ever seen in a zombie film, reacting in ways that were equally believable. Dead Set had something of that, too, with characters reacting in ways that I could see real people reacting. Any acts of heroism were as equally motivated by self-preservation as they were by any sense of morality. It made the characters hard to like, but fascinating to watch.

Plus, as I mentioned above, Dead Set gave us time to really get to know the people and explore their situation.

All of which brings me to The Walking Dead.

What Looks Good #332: The Walking Dead Are Coming!

This week's What Looks Good is a Halloween Hootenanny of awesome holiday television, DVD, BluRay, and Movies!

Plus, an extra special ADVANCE REVIEW OF THE FIRST EPISODE OF THE WALKING DEAD!!!