Last Sunday’s episode of The Walking Dead. Where do I begin? I guess I begin by prefacing this with the statement — I’m biased. I like my zombie horror apocalyptic in scope, scale, and mood. With that said, I want to go out on a limb and offer up a little criticism of the current state of The Walking Dead.
I will also preface this by saying I really, really like the show. It’s very well acted, written, directed, filmed, and the effects are tops. But the last few episodes have been, well, a bit soap opera-ish.
I get it. I really do! We’re talking about extending graphic novels into a lengthy television series (and I do hope it gets a long, long life). And so a good deal more depth is necessary to help not only build character, but draw out the events of the story. But really — who loves who, who’s pregnant by who, and who is willing to be selfish enough to get laid is a taking it a big too far…
…considering the world is collapsing in a dirty pile of steaming, rotting flesh around them.
What I do like is the balance between horror and human they have going on. And I know full-well you can’t have an onslaught of walkers in every episode. Not only would it get tiresome, it would eventually become really unbelievable. Not only would the survivors not survive a perpetual attack of zombies, the area would eventually either be overrun by the beasts, or the group would kill them all and would run out of targets to de-brain.
But what it seems is that The Walking Dead is suffering from what I call “RTVS”, or Reality TV Syndrome. What I mean is this: So many have grown accustomed to reality television where it is all drama all the time. If people aren’t bitching, pissing, moaning, whining, or fighting — it’s not real. I certainly hope everyone reading this blog knows there is little reality in Reality TV. That kind of inbred infighting simply doesn’t work out in real-land. Why? Eventually the mighty will climb to the top of the crap heap and remind those under them who’s in power. We can all see that happening in TWD (I won’t give anything away as usual), one of the top-dog cowboys is going to wind up on top… and I’m fairly certain it won’t be the crazy man!
And seriously — let’s bring this show back to civilization. The hoedown is getting tiresome. I understand it’s probably infinitely cheaper to film on that isolate farm land, but it’s just doesn’t scream apocalypse! It’s begs for those people to spin their partners ’round and ’round!
What do you think? Is the baby daddy drama gone a bit over board? Do we care who’s shagging who? Or is The Walking Dead becoming nothing but a post-apocalyptic version of The Brady Bunch? Speak out about our favorite zombie television treat.
Follow
Email Post