Dead Done
I didn't like the idea of a TV show about zombies. Zombies in a movie with an ending I get, but the relentlessness week after week would get tiresome. So at first I didn't watch The Walking Dead which nevertheless managed to become TV's biggest phenomenon.
Eventually I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, so I started watching and caught up during the fourth season. The fifth season, which just ended, was the only one I watched as it was being aired. I haven't changed my view much: it's not a bad show, but is far from great. It tries for some psychological depth, but generally fails, and much of the action is repetitive.
Still, the fifth season was maybe the best since the first. It had a somewhat different plot from the usual--normally the main group has to fight nasty people (along with the zombies), but this season they had to live with people who were nicer than they were. I especially liked Carol. She started as a weak, abused woman who had to learn how to be tough. This season allowed her to pretend to be a quiet homemaker to cover just how tough she's become.
But really, how much longer can this show go on? Do the math. Even if humans are outnumbered 100-1 by zombies, at the rate our heroes are killing them, they'd be pretty much gone by now.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:02 AM
3 Comments:
There are a lot of zombies. If the number of living humans is as modest as the show portrays, there are potentially millions of zombies (plus buried bodies I guess) wandering around.
What I don't get is how the zombies skulls got so squishable. Yes rot sets in but skulls tend to be very hard and characters to crush them with their hands and feet and what look like soft sticks.
Also- a bite tends to kill and zombify a human quickly but getting lots of zombie guts over someone seems to have no effect. This ain't how Ebola worked. Open cuts and inhaling gut splatter would seems to be vectors for the disease.
Its really just a post apocalyptic series about how people live with daily horror. The characters are largely uninspired grunters (except Eugene) but there is enough action and unknown developments keep me watching
Season 5 is definitely the best since the first. Honestly, I've enjoyed every season. The first was standard zombie movie fare (tear-jerking tragedy and horror as sisters, kids, etc are surprise attacked and killed or zombified).
After that, they really have tried to inject socialogical issues, and character development. These themes always revolve around how human (humane) one has to be to survive and not become a "Walking Dead" (which can apply to the survivors as much as the zombies). We've had the conflict on a personal level between Daryl and his brother Meryl, and on a societal level between Rick's crew and the autocratice Governor's town. Then we saw Terminus, and example of a society driven insane (and mimicing the zombies while they even live) when their efforts to remain humane left them susceptible to the worst kind of brutality now loosed on the world by the inhumae.
This season has been most interesting because the crew has realized they must walk a fine line bewteen barbarity and civility. The people of Alexandria (who nourish a facade of civility) are the sketch board on whicth Rick and the rest will attempt to draw that line, as they will face the utterly inhumane "Wolves" in season 6.
I think the series could go on for a long time if it becomes a show about rebuilding the world after the apocalypse. The number of zombies should drop dramatically (as they finally rot away). But I doubt the interest will last, and the actors will want to move on.
I've read that a spin-off is coming this summer - set in LA! They will be exploring the start of the crisis, and maybe LA will do a better job of protecting a fair number of their citizens than GA did. AMC is probably in for another hit.
It is true they've adjusted the zombie rules so that they make no sense but allow for maximum action. Though it seems to me that the zombies are so easy to kill that I'm surprised that anyone still gets bit.
When you look at the complexity of character on many top dramas in recent years, you realize how simple and even silly this show is. Their idea of depth is to have someone go into a funk for several episodes and then do something stupid or annoying.
The show is popular enough that it can go on forever without really moving forward. Perhaps if the ratings start to falter they'll try something new like rebuilding the world.
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