TV Series Review: The Walking Dead (2010)

Ok...so, if you haven't already checked out this new TV show...you really are depriving yourself of a good time. AMC really isn't on my scope of channels to tune into...well, aside for the awesome list of films they showed this past Halloween season. I am not particularly into the show, Mad Men, so I really don't have a reason to visit the network. Until now, that is.

The Walking Dead is the first real television show to center around zombies, so this is sort of a landmark series. It is directed by Frank Darabont of The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and The Mist fame. The Mist being his only real foray into the horror genre. Now, I will say this...when I first heard rumblings of this new series a little under a year ago, Frank Darabont hardly impressed me as the guy to helm this concept of the dead coming back to life. While The Mist was a solid and entertaining entry into horror film, it certainly wasn't anything special. But, I liked the tone of that film. It's the same premise here for The Walking Dead.  Ordinary man in supernatural peril. Man needs to find his family. Man shacks up with complete strangers to fight supernatural forces. Adapted from the comic book of the same name for the television screen by Mr. Darabont.

Here let me catch you up to speed if you haven't already tuned in last Sunday for the premiere episode. Andrew Lincoln, an actor you don't really know unless you watch alot of BBC or made-for-TV movies, plays police officer Rick Grimes. So, Grimes is shot during a high speed chase that ends in a shoot out. He is rushed to a hospital where he wakes up from a coma some time later only to discover that everyone is gone. Here's where it gets a little 28 Days Later on ya...however, it is necessary for the plot that he does wake up after the zombies have taken over the world. He learns later from a couple of survivors that the dead come back to life and munch on the living.

Now he's on a mission to find his wife and son, who happen to be alive and well in a nearby camp where his wife, Lori (played by Sarah Wayne Callies), is whoring it up with Grimes' police partner, Shane. I'm kinda hoping that a zombie devours both Shane and his wife for being a couple of cheatin' ass muthafuckas. I mean, come on man (!!) the guy hasn't been presumed dead very long and she's gotta go spreadin' her legs during a fuckin' zombie apocalypse with her husband's fuckin' partner of all people!!?? Anyway, poor Grimes is on a quest to find his family.

During his journey, he discovers a horse in a farm where the inhabitants have offed themselves via a shotgun blast to the head. He tries to play zombie apocalypse cowboy in the city where he runs into a horde of zombies and leaves the poor horse for zombie appetizer and then ends up barricaded in a tank leftover by the U.S. Army. Poor Grimes. Obviously, there's more depth in this premiere episode, but I don't want to spoil the actual nuances of the show that make it special.

It's a great fuckin' TV show expertly directed by Darabont. While it is a little tedious at times (the scene in the beginning where Grimes and Shane are talking in the squad car just moments before the shoot out could've seriously been chopped down to 20 seconds instead of what seemed like a fuckin' eternity)...the show more than makes up for it, though, with really great zombie make-up and overall good special F/X. And one more thing that makes this series head and shoulders above its theatrical counterparts....CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT!!!

It's a really good excuse to delete your Boardwalk Empire season pass...as that show is already getting a little stale. The Walking Dead IS must-see television in a land of mediocre TV....AND...it has zombies!! What more could you hope for?? Perhaps Mr. Romero should pay attention.

9 out of 10...so far.

The show is on Sundays @ 10/9c on AMC Network.

Thanks for reading,

bryan.