I hate writing posts like this because it once again shows that I am painfully out of touch with popular culture. I just don’t like what most everyone else seems to adore. Current case in point: The Walking Dead. Now, let me preface this by saying that I was immensely looking forward to AMC’s new offering. Earlier this summer I read issues 1-10 of Robert Kirkman’s comic and was intrigued. I loved how he set the story up: the zombies were the backdrop and it was a story about human survival. I wondered how it would translate to a TV show, but I had faith in AMC. Breaking Bad is my favorite show, so they had to know what they were doing, right?
Well, the thing is: Breaking Bad wasn’t a comic. Nor was it a book. And even if it were either of those things, I hadn’t read them so the story was fresh to me. Now, I’d bet that if you didn’t have any exposure to the comic, then TWD probably seems really great. But it’s disappointing to me how it deviates from Kirkman’s original work. I imagine some of the things I question in the first two episodes probably happen later in the comic series and the writers brought them in sooner because it makes for good TV. So maybe if you’re a WD aficionado you like it more than I do, too.
But all that aside, the show moves as a grueling pace. It is painfully slow and they drag out some of the scenes far longer than they should. Just get to the point already! I feel like they are just trying too hard with this show. And the zombies? I’d read about what a big deal the zombies were supposed to be in this series. The actors went through “zombie school” to train. Half of them don’t act like the undead. And there is no consistency. And they’re not scary. I almost fell asleep during Episode 2, which I watched On Demand last night.
I guess I expected too much. And that’s my problem a lot of the time. I need to start lowering my expectations. Will I continue to watch the show? Probably. At least for a few more episodes. At some point my disappointment will get the best of me, I’m sure and I’ll just let it go, but I would at least like to watch until he finally sees his wife and son again. (They’re really dragging this out. My guess is they want to make Rick more of a hero than necessary and make Shane out to be a very obvious “bad guy.”)
To end on a positive note: the casting is great. I don’t think they could have chosen actors that so closely resemble (in both appearance and manner) Kirkman’s comic book characters.
We’ll see where this thing goes.