Rewind: The Walking Dead S2

The Walking Dead has some amazing makeup artists that achieve the impossible in showing convincing zombie portrayals that I haven't seen yet in the zombie genre.  It's by far the best thing about the show.  I felt I should start this review with something positive, because most of this review will not be positive.  (That's a warning for TWD fans)

This isn't a very good show.  Basically, to me at least, the appeal of this show is "Do you like zombies?"  You HAVE to like zombies to like this show.  You have to find zombies awesome actually.  I'm mildly interested in the zombie genre and I've actually liked quite a bit of the movies in that genre so The Walking Dead should theoretically appeal to me.  The problem though is that if you don't love zombies, if you don't love mindless action, this isn't a good show at all.

A very important part of making a good television show involves making interesting characters who you want to see succeed.  The Walking Dead does NOT have that whatsoever.  I kind of care about Rick, Glenn, and Daryl.  I'm not sure if that's because of the writing or if it is because those are the only good actors on the show.  (Though Dale is played by a good actor too and I stopped caring about him in this season - except for his tendency to widen his eyes for serious moments).

Having character development is vital to a show where anyone can die.  If you care about the majority of the characters, every scene is heightened because of that potential - especially in a zombie genre.  When you don't care about the characters, you don't really care if they die.  I know that Sophia was a kid, but this show made zero attempt at making me care if she lived or died and they wasted six episodes until that resolution was cleared up.  In the five episodes before, I could not care less if they found here - to the show's credit I just assumed she would live so I guess points there.

This show is poorly written.  The writers basically came up with interesting ideas that they wanted to explore and then wrote ways to get to that idea.  None of it is very organic and nearly every conflict needed to be brought about by a character doing something stupid, usually by the apparently brain dead Lori.  An example: Rick and Glenn go find Hershel, who's at a bar.  They go explicitly to find Hershel.  Lori objects to this because Rick needs to stay with their son.  Then they leave and she GOES OFF AND ABANDONS HER SON TO FIND THEM.  What did she think she was going to do?  Save them from zombies?  Yeah, right you're going to be able to horde off zombies when Rick and Glenn can't.  Anyway, then she crashes her car because she's reading a map while driving.  SO STUPID.

Then there's the fact that almost all of these characters are unlikeable.  I've already mentioned Lori, who exists to give the negative feedback.  Andrea is another character who is pretty easy to hate - she gets mad at Dale for saving her life, then shoots at Daryl with three people around him (assuming shooting was the right move).  I like Maggie I guess.  But I think liking her is just an extension of me liking Glenn really cause her purpose is to date Glenn and not much else.  The female characters on this show are not written well at all.  Then there's T-Dog who gets jackshit to do all season. (I'm sure I will care about his obvious and inevitable death soon)

This show is poorly acted for the most part as well.  Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes, Steven Yeun as Glenn, Scott Wilson as Hershel, and Norman Reedus as Daryl are all good actors who seem to elevate the material they are given.  The rest though?  They leave something to be desired.  Jon Bernthal as Shane is mediocre at best and sometimes he's given more than he can handle.  Chandler Riggs as Carl is straight up awful as an actor, but he's a kid so I guess that's more understandable.  And Sarah Wayne Callies isn't great as Lori.  It's partly the writing, it's also partly the bug eyes she develops anytime she's mad, frustrated, upset, or really any emotion.

Yet another problem with this show is the lack of tension.  The zombie scenes create a certain amount of tension, but I was pretty sure who wasn't going to die.  And I was mostly right.  A zombie show should NOT have zombie scenes where it seems like nobody will die.  And if somebody does die, it's usually someone the audience just met like Otis.  It's hard to care about a character dying after two episodes. (Side note: It should be a sin that on a show as poorly acted as this, that they bring in Michael Raymond-James of Terriers and Pruitt Taylor Vance of Deadwood and have them killed off almost immediately.  Raymond-James was scary good in his 10 minutes of screen time.  Someone give this guy a TV show... oh wait someone already did.  Sigh)

While I'm being honest, this review was written after having seen the first 11 episodes.  I haven't seen the last two yet which I've heard are among the show's best.  Overall, I don't think that changes anything I've said yet.  I'm done watching this show for good now.  For people who want to complain "If you don't like it, don't watch it" I won't.  I watched the rest of season two specifically to write this review or I would have stopped.

The Walking Dead is a more apt title for the living "characters" on this show than the zombies - oh I'm sorry "walkers."

Playlist
1. "Bohemian Rhapsody" - Queen
2. "Centerfield" - John Fogerty
3. "Real World" - Matchbox 20
4. "Multiples" - Atmosphere
5. "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)" - Arcade Fire

Rewind: The Walking Dead Season 1

Zombies in Hollywood have just about run their course.  I don't have a fascination with zombies by themselves, which seems to make me one of the few who don't.  So I'm late in watching this television show about zombies, because a show about zombies inherently does not interest me by itself.

The Walking Dead's first season is good television, if not perfectly written.  This show has figured out how people react in dire situations, but in between those situations, it's not the strongest.  Whereas they seem to nail scenes that are difficult to write, they hit as much as they miss in the "down time" scenes.

The pilot episode was about as perfect as a pilot episode can get written.  Lost is the only other show I can think of that had such an engaging pilot that made you want to watch more.  Unfortunately, it is far and away the best episode to date that I have watched.

The first scene sets the table about how awful the world has become when Rick needs to shoot a little girl zombie.  The natural sound they had was amazing and the scene was extremely tense.  Another thing they got right was skipping the part where the zombies overtake humans, which has been well-explored.  This series deals with the aftermath.  The way they accomplish this is by having Rick Grimes be our guide, with him jumping into the zombie world.

The episode continues strongly as Rick realistically makes his way to his home while he and the viewers are taking in the destruction that has happened.  I cannot praise Andrew Lincoln enough in this role.  He really sells everything.  The scene where he breaks down and cries when he can't find is family is heartbreaking.

He is saved by Morgan Jones, played by Lennie James, and his son.  James was probably the best part of that first episode, which is a shame because we don't see him for the rest of the season.  He can't bring himself to kill his wife, who is now zombified.

The ending of the episode was not as good as the first half.  The farmhouse he visits has a bloodily written "God Forgive Us," which is purely for thematic value and doesn't really make sense if you think about it.  Why would you take the time to write that as your life is winding down?

Then when he is escaping the zombies in the street in Atlanta at the end - which was well done - he crawls under the tank and it looks like he will shoot himself.... except no one would buy that the main character would commit suicide in the first episode so that was a cheap ploy.  The ending with the "Hey you dumbass" and the last song finished the episode strongly though.

A part of the show I entirely dislike is the Lori and Shane relationship.  It feels contrived to me to create drama.  I buy that Shane would want to get with Lori, but I don't see the motive for Lori here.  Yes, her husband is apparently dead, but we're still talking a month or so that's passed.  I just don't buy that relationship and am not a fan whenever that gets brought up.  (The first scene of "Guts" when Shane scares Lori is bullshit.  Manufacturing tension, because in that world, nobody sneaks up on anybody ever or you might die.)

In the third episode, Rick reuniting with his family was well done.  I am not sure how they pulled that off, but boy did they.  I also liked the comment from Dale about how words can't accurately capture what's happening.

I mentioned the writing for the "in between" scenes before and an example is the "evil characters."   It's in quotes mostly, because they aren't characters.  They are caricatures.  It's a joke.  Ed, the wife-beating misogynist, is one of the most poorly written characters I've ever seen.  There is nothing likable about him.

As far as characters that are well-written, I'd say that comprises the people who took most of the screen time in the last few episodes.  Andrea and her sister share a touching moment in the boat that made us care about them.  Jim's heartbreaking story about how he escaped only because his family was being eaten.  Dale's story about how he was angry when his wife was taken away from him and now he had Andrea.  Shane is a dick, but at least he's a human being.  Glenn, Merle, T-Dog, and Daryl are not really that well-written, but the actors make the most out of it.

This season is just too rushed.  I know that's AMC's fault, but I don't understand why.  They could have easily stretched out this season while fleshing characters.  We experienced the CDC for a single episode.  (Speaking of which, Noah Emmerich is impressive in his short time).  They just needed more time to make these storylines work better.

Overall, the season is rushed, which largely causes a lot of the character problems.  They don't have enough time to make us care so they need to create some caricatures that are easy to kill off. They barely get enough time for us to even remember half of their names. (Do you know who Jacqui is, because I needed to look up that she was the one black woman?)

Season Grade: B+

Playlist
1. "What They Do" - The Roots
2. "Miracle Mile" - Cold War Kids
3. "Black Hole Sun" - Soundgarden
4. "Do You Realize?" - The Flaming Lips
5. "Immortal" - Kid Cudi