A TV show about zombies that airs on the same network that also has Mad Men? Shambling, rotting corpses that stalk the living, on the same network where Don Draper wrestles with his conscience while swigging back his Martini lunch? Oh, hell yeah! Since it dumped its commercial-free format a few years ago, AMC (which used to be known as American Movie Classics) has become must-see TV for many folks, thanks to such edgy shows like Breaking Bad and the aforementioned soap opera about 1960s ad executives and the women who love/hate them. And now, with The Walking Dead, AMC’s latest hit, I finally have a reason to watch the channel. Based on the comic book by Robert Kirkman (which I have not read), the creative force behind The Walking Dead is writer/director Frank Darabont.
Darabont, who gave us such films as The Shawshank Redemption, The Majestic and
The Mist (and who has cast several of his Mist actors in this series), presents us with a morality play that takes place in a post-apocalyptic world that has been overrun by zombies. If anybody has any doubts about the intensity of the project, and whether or not it will flinch from showing anything graphic, this gets dispelled right off the bat in the marvelous teaser of the first episode, Days Gone Bye, where the hero of the story, Deputy Sheriff Rick Grimes (well-played by Andrew Lincoln) has a grisly encounter with a little girl zombie. The amount of gore on display in this series shouldn’t be too surprising, since most TV police procedurals in recent years have become just as stomach-churning in their depiction of crime scene gore.
Most zombie films deal with the outbreak of the zombie crisis, showing a rag-tag
group of people struggling to survive the zombie hordes just before the ominous
fade to black. But The Walking Dead is different in that it continues to tell
the story well after what would normally be the end for other productions. And
the story is handled here with intelligence and sensitivity.
While the gore and fright factor are a major selling point of this series,
Darabont makes these elements all the more effective because, thanks to the
superb writing, we genuinely care about the still-living characters. Make no
mistake, while The Walking Dead may look like a horror show on the surface, the
level of writing on display here is in the same league as the recent excellent
Battlestar Galactia remake.
And, in its own way, The Walking Dead ingeniously revamps the zombie story much
like how BSG revamped the space opera. The first season of The Walking Dead is
just six episodes, but what episodes they are! Watching them all together on DVD
is a joy because they all flow seamlessly together like a movie that’s spread
over two discs. All six episodes are great, but I was especially taken with Days
Gone Bye and Vatos, which each offer a masterfully done mixture of suspense and drama. The second disc is loaded with behind the scenes special features, which show that the series was one of the rare productions which was actually shot where it takes place: in and around Atlanta, Georgia. The series’ extraordinarily high ratings practically assured that it return for a second season, and I can’t wait. But until that part of the saga begins, get yourself started on this dark, fascinating journey with this superb collection of first season episodes.
--SF
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