THE WALKING DEAD IS HERE

I’m trying to not be a Zombinezer Scrooge (see what I did there? goddamn genius), but I found the series premiere episode of THE WALKING DEAD to be a bit underwhelming. Don’t get me wrong, it was good and I’m still very excited about the show. I have been asking the universe for a zombie apocalypse show for the last 6 years, so this is all very grand, but it just didn’t have that jaw dropping vibe I was hoping for.

My disappointment started with the plot device where our protagonist, Rick Grimes, wakes up from a coma in a vacated hospital. It’s well executed in the show, but unfortunately it was already well executed in Danny Boyle’s 28 DAYS LATER. I know that THE WALKING DEAD is based on a previously published source material, so they couldn’t change TOO many things, but for me that entire 15 minutes of the show was ‘been there, done that’.



That’s a pretty big moment of the series, so it was a bit of a letdown. It’s reminiscent of when I saw the teaser trailer for GODZILLA. In it a homeless fisherman is casting off a pier and much to his dismay he ‘catches’ Godzilla. I remember seeing that and thinking A) that was awesome, and B) I can’t wait to see how they reveal Godzilla in the movie. Turns out it was the exact same scene. So disappointed. The movie was ass bags from there anyway, so whatever.

I also felt like there were a handful of scenes that really didn’t have the emotional impact that was intended. In one scene Grimes walks up to a zombie (one that pulls itself along with its arms since it has no legs) and before putting her/it out of her/its misery with a bullet through the eyeball, he tells her/it that ‘he’s sorry this happened to you’.


I didn’t feel he was sorry at all. That’s the moment they want you to feel sympathy for the zombies (who are technically just victims), but instead it felt more like Grimes was angry with her/it. It not only causes you to miss that important connection that zombies are/were humans, you also miss a great opportunity for the viewer to like and care for Grimes. The mercy killing becomes more of an act of vengeance.

Regardless, I think the last 15 minutes of the show was easily the best, so I anxiously await next week’s episode. I think from here it’s only going to get better now that they got the initial setup out of the way. These fingers are crossed.