AMC's "The Walking Dead"

[Herr Matzat]

I think the whole Zombie rubbed all over you stuff was a lot less convincing than in the comic. "Hey, i am rick and just wook up, lets just past gore all over us and crawl out in the horde without even testing this smell idea once." Lorie going into the woods on her own was fairly strange aswell.

I agree on Andrea, Shane just looks goofy i can´t take him seriusly for now. He obviusly is designed to be hated banging the main characters wife a short while after he got shot and telling the hot syster that her semi hot sister will not be searched for. But he just issent cutting it yet, maybe that changes wen he gets a little more screentime.

Merle will return and cause some havoc soon. They teased it with the toolbox getting kicked over... i hope he is smart enough not to cut of his hand.

For now, Glenn rules all. I love him, he fit´s his role perfectly. The combination of whats comming from the comic and how he is aranged in the comedy of the show is just perfect.

What surprises me is that there has not been a human death yet. Maybe they save that one for Merle to do, so he first human death is actualy inflicted by a human. Kinda like setting the toan with shoting a child within the first sceen of the first episode.

All in all i liked it, but this can still get a ton better.

[thatblindgeye]

To be fair, after they rubbed the blood and guts and whatever else on the coats they were wearing, they DID pass by only a few zombies. That was pretty much their test run. Had those few zombies not been fooled and tried killing them, they could have just run back inside. It isnt like they plopped down in the middle of the entire horde with no escape route or anything.

Havent read the comics or anything, but Im enjoying the show. Anything zombie for the most part is good, and I like how they arent being held back as far as content goes. Seeing some of the way the zombies look is visually great. I like that it is a TV show, something that doesnt end as quickly as a movie. Seeing them deal with the zombie outbreak over a span of however long it lasts should be good, especially if it stays as true to the comics as possible, based on what people are saying about the comics.

I must also echo the comment that someone said about Sarah Wayne Callies.

[Herr Matzat]

especially if it stays as true to the comics as possible

They actualy changed a lot already. I would not say i like all the changes but all in all it´s great becaus it fits the medium better and keeps it interesting for people who read the comic.

[GoGo Yubari]

The show has absolutely nailed Glenn's character (which is important because he's the first really "oh wow this guy is a really compelling stranger" character in the comic; Tyreese, Michonne, and Abraham follow in that tradition), and done well enough foreshadowing who Andrea will (hopefully) become. On the other hand, thusfar none of the new characters are compelling and are outright kind of silly (especially in terms of names; they seem to all have names that are like "oh, that's the name a black guy would have," "that's the name a black woman would have") and that's unfortunate because the comic is wonderful at subverting cultural stereotypes and here's a dude named T-Dog who dresses and talks street, and here's Merle Dixon the generic asshole racist redneck who is a douchebag just sort of because! That being said, none of them got the red shirt treatment so maybe they'll gain more depth as the show progresses.

[zero]

Yeah, the addition of Merle and "T-Dog" (really? T-Dog?) seemed like an excuse for someone to say "nigger" on the show. It did a good job of establishing Rick though and the idea that white vs. black is over now, but it was a bit two-dimensional. I was expecting T-Dog to get eaten for leaving Dixon behind, but it looks like there will be more to this story. I expect Merle and his brother will be the antagonists until...

comic spoilers:

Shane goes full-blown asshole. The comic moved really fast with the tension between Rick & Shane, and they're going to need to pad that out in the show. In the books, a couple frames of "we should leave" vs. "no, we should stay" was enough to get the point across, so that's probably why Dixon and his brother were added. I'm not convinced they'll kill Shane this season either.

I liked the gut smear in the show way better than in the comic though. In the comic, they just rubbed the stump of a hand on them, but here they went for total gross out factor.

[YI]

So nobody thought of telling me ANDREW 'FUCKING' LINCOLN was in this!?!?!

I don't 'do' zombie shit to be honest...but fuck...Andrew Lincoln.

Edited November 8, 2010 by YI

[zero]

Officially renewed for Season 2

AMC announced today the renewal of The Walking Dead for a 13-episode second season. Since debuting Sun., Oct. 31, The Walking Dead has broken ratings records, with the series reaching more Adults 18 to 49 than any other show in the history of cable television.

Today's announcement also includes Fox International Channels' (FIC) global renewal for a second season, following record-breaking premiere ratings in 120 countries in Europe, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East. The Walking Dead was the highest-rated original series premiere ever to air on FIC simultaneously worldwide.

"The Dead has spread!" said Charlie Collier, President, AMC. "No other cable series has ever attracted as many Adults 18-49 as The Walking Dead. This reaffirms viewers' hunger for premium television on basic cable. We are so proud to be bringing back The Dead again, across the globe."

[Boogey131]

The new characters added to the show are so one-dimensional(so far) I do want the show to be it's own thing eventually and having its own characters is a good way to set itself apart from the comic series, but ...T-Dog? Ugh. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt though, I did enjoy the last ten minutes a hell of a lot, especially with Dixon being left how he was, pretty flat characters but they can be easily developed with more scenes like that. With a few exceptions, I always felt The Walking Dead comics were the same, it always takes me a few issues/scenes with a new character before I can get a sense of a 3rd dimension to their characters.

Personally, I'm ok with the casting of Shane. Dale, Glenn, Rick, Lori and to a lesser extent Andrea(Im not too keen on the actress playing her but she's not been bad so far) are all perfectly cast. I didn't see Rick in Andrew Lincoln at first but the Dixon/T-Dog fight scene helped set my mind at ease and though he still doesn't match what I see in Rick visually, he's definitely a good choice.

Oh...a pet peeve - Zombies with bricks and zombies climbing chain link fences = little annoying. I don't think I could climb a chain link fence so it just seemed off to see it. And zombies should not be able to use weapons, even if only against a door. I know it's pathetic to expect 'realism' in a story about the dead coming back to life as mindless cannibals, but, I still cringe when I think of the zombies using bricks to smash in the door, it shows some sort of coherent thought because there is no reason for two zombies to just happen to have large blocks of cement. I'm hoping they keep this sort of thing to a minimum, it really does take me out of it.

[=BK=]

So I kinda like Zombie stuff but it freaks me out and makes me paranoid. If Dawn of the Dead(2004) had me freaked out for a week in a half, what will this do to me?

[Herr Matzat]

So I kinda like Zombie stuff but it freaks me out and makes me paranoid. If Dawn of the Dead(2004) had me freaked out for a week in a half, what will this do to me?

I prittymuch feel the same, a good Zombie Movie is prittymuch the only thing that can give me the creeps. TWD Comic was able to do it aswell... the TV Show issent there yet. It has the gore but not nearly the creepynes. I feel a real fear that they could scare the viewers away. Buffy Season 7 Style.

Edited November 9, 2010 by Michael Matzat on a Plane

[zero]

Doesn't a zombie use a brick to break a car window in Night of the Living Dead? In some zombie mythos, they can use tools like primitive man, and many of them "retain" some elements of their previous life and can run/climb if their body hasn't decayed too much.

/zombie nerd.

[Ruki]

Just watched the second episode....so good! Loved the Glenn character too. When they were walking through the streets? Man, that was tense. But in a good way. I am very much into this show

And yay for a second season!

[Boogey131]

Doesn't a zombie use a brick to break a car window in Night of the Living Dead? In some zombie mythos, they can use tools like primitive man, and many of them "retain" some elements of their previous life and can run/climb if their body hasn't decayed too much.

/zombie nerd.

I enjoy a lot of zombie media but, other than appreciating the fact Romero created what your average person sees when they think of zombie, I dint hold those films in high regard. To me, I enjoy zombies being clumsy, bumbling creatures that at a couple of a time and in an open space are easily avoidable but in large numbers or a more claustrophobic setting are dangerous as all hell. I am not the kind if person who holds this standard as what all zombie stories should be since I do like DOTD(2004), 28 Days Later, Dead Set where the zombies run etc it's just, weird for me to see out of 50 or so zombies a single one nimbly climb a chain link fence. To show that sort of comprehension just took me out of the moment personally.

I'm not going to condemn the show though, if they're going to continually show those sort of things I'll hopefully get used to it but just a little jarring to see.

[Herr Matzat]

Doesn't a zombie use a brick to break a car window in Night of the Living Dead? In some zombie mythos, they can use tools like primitive man, and many of them "retain" some elements of their previous life and can run/climb if their body hasn't decayed too much.

/zombie nerd.

I don´t remember that. But there was an ongoing theme of zombies remembering what they did in their past life and them being able to learn certain basic skills... so one was taught how to use a gun and another one was still somewhat operating a gas station. (i think in land of the dead he even had some kind of "boss zombie", but i found that rather silly)

For me it´s just a different kind of terror if the masses just "overrun" the glass doores pushing them in, hurting the zombies that are up in front like it would happen wen there is a panic at a big stadium concert... the human being reduced to it´s most animalistic.

[Fanku Kaibutsu]

the way i figure, a person's zombie intelligence is relative to their living intelligence, so the brick-user-types were the geniuses when they were alive, which explains how out of that crowd of zombies at the glass, only one knew how to try to smash it open with a heavy object.

[LittleDaniel]

Personally, I suspended disbelief and didn't bring logic to creatures that are supposedly brought back from the dead because that is silly.

[Herr Matzat]

Personally, I suspended disbelief and didn't bring logic to creatures that are supposedly brought back from the dead because that is silly.

You say that now, but wen a running climbing zombie eats you you will all like "he wassent suposed to be able to do that"!

[HailtotheYo]

T-Dog is an issue ?

They're in HOT-LANTA people

I'm liking it. Sure there's nitpick things here and there (like the zombies beeing seemingly retarded in the first episode to being able to climb over fences and use bricks to bust glass in the second) but I'm not familiar with the original material so this is my first experience with TWD.

[GoGo Yubari]

I don't think they were presented that way so much in the first episode. Morgan's wife showed recognition of what was their house and the fact that her husband and son were probably in there. Walking Dead zombies seem to have some sort of grasp of who they once were just from that.

[Herr Matzat]

I don´t remember anything like that from the comics. Most of the time it was more an issue of the humans dealing with zombies they knew from before they turned. (sort of like morgan in episode one)