The Walking Dead TV

Here in Vancouver we get our first episode on Sunday at nine (I think, maybe 8) so I'm pretty pumped to sit down and enjoy a new show for the first time in years.

There was this stupid ad for the show where a bunch of hot chicks that wouldn't know Robert Kirkman from their own assholes talk about how the show isn't about Zombies.

Bullshit.

Sure, the comic is about character development, it's about what happens to people when their creature comforts are taken away, it's about a family trying to struggle to keep sane in this new and changing environment, it's about how a social setting changes in times of crisis...

but it's also about Zombies. Lots of fucking zombies that have taken over the world. Don't try to tell people it's not.

I'm sure it's just a stupid commercial to get wives to watch it but it pissed me off. My wife told me to cool down but I was having so much fun I couldn't stop.

Sunday. Then I'll know if it's about zombies or not.

Hopefully some solid acting can make characters that are likable. I read the first few books of the series... I wanted every one of those people to die.

has walking dead started yet? Impressions?

Black Barney wrote:

has walking dead started yet? Impressions?

meeeeeeehhhhhhhhhh....Halloweeeeeeennn.....braaaaaaainnnssss......

ah Sunday, got it. I expect detailed posts about it so I can imagine what it would be like to have watched it.

Saw it yesterday. Slow intro, starts in the country, builds up towards heading for the city. First episode ends on a high. I liked the quietness of some scenes. Certainly looks like it has potential. That enough for you Barney? If you can't wait.

yeah, that's a perfect synopsis you wrote, notahandle, thanks dude.

I wasn't looking for a bunch of WHARGABL or anything

Thinking about it more, what I like is the audience learning as the protagonist does. There is a sense of increasing dread and foreboding. Scenes that hint: what's behind that door in the hospital. Scenes with a slow reveal: leaving the hospital. And scenes of emptiness and desolation. It builds well, great for a first episode, but unlikely to keep that atmosphere a whole season, though I'm hoping I'm wrong. What surprises me is that I'm looking forward to the next episode, and that's bloody rare. And never happened before for a zombie piece. I'll probably be buying the DVD set.

I'd be surprised if any F:ATtie didn't enjoy it, set your recorders.

there's some zombie show on tonight in Canada but it's not this. It's the season finale (but I think that's just a promo) and it's called Dead Air or something (I can't remember). Anyway, I'll check it out

Just watched it...it's pretty good. Not great. It's not really bringing anything new to the zombie canon, but it's well done and of much higher class than most genre examples from the past decade or so. There were some pretty great scenes- the cross-cut montage of the guy trying to work up the nerve to shoot his wife and Grimes just watching the halfie chomp at him in the grass was pretty goddamn excellent. The scene under the tank was also really effective.

The really funny part to me is watching him walk down by Georgia State University. If you watch, when he first gets to Atlanta he's down by Marietta Street and Luckie Street. That's where I went to college. I don't know where he was supposed to come from (I'm guessing it was supposed to be Stockbridge or if it was further south Macon), but it's pretty accurate if he went up I-85 that would sort of be the gateway into south Atlanta.

The horse shouldn't have been killed. It should have been a character. That was lame.

I haven't read the comics so I don't know what happens, but so far it looks like it'll be a good character-driven drama more than an action horror thing, and I'm glad for that.

I do really appreciate that it's grim and not silly or goofy. It's refreshing to see zombies that aren't cute and funny again. I am tired of viral zombies, I really wish someone would go back to Fulci and do supernatural zombies.

You can't tell me they didn't get that car alarm business from LEFT 4 DEAD though...

I was going to pop in and say not great but good. Makeup was excellent. No stupid pop up Zombie attacks either. Every scene there was a zombie in was somewhere it made sense.

A note about the makeup- Greg Nicotero is the lead FX man, but a lot of the makeup work was done by a friend of my wife's...she's one of the big Atlanta makeup artists. There's a lot of folks my wife and I know that worked on the show in various capacities. She was asked to work on it but turned it down since it was shooting right after River was born. Given that they were shooting 16-18 hour days for a couple of monhts, I don't think she regrets passing it up.

Michael Barnes wrote:

The horse shouldn't have been killed. It should have been a character. That was lame.

I haven't read the comics so I don't know what happens, but so far it looks like it'll be a good character-driven drama more than an action horror thing, and I'm glad for that.

The comics are much more character driven than they are zombie driven. So as far as that goes, so far so good.

Everyones "good not great" opinions mirror my own. But, having read the comics, I sort of know where it's supposed to be going, and if they do everything well, it will be great down the road. Even the comic does nothing new for the genre, but just how big in scope it is is unparalleled.

The first episode was slow and over dramatic at times. I rolled my eyes a few times while watching it and felt like the actors involved tried a lilttle too hard at times.

They played it safe, not really doing anything too different.

But I enjoyed it anyway and think that there is some potential there. It's strange how lines or ideas from the comic don't work as well when done in a live action show. I really like it as a comic and think it belongs in that medium but since it's Kirkman, and not someone more comics specific like Moore, it still works allright. Kirkman doesn't write comics in a way that takes full advantage of the medium, he just writes fun stories with complete characters and the show seems to be trying to capture that.

I look forward to watching more and I guess I'm kind of echoing the others who say good but not great. There were moments where it felt like it could be great... but also moments of eye rolling too. I'm still watching.

I thought the first episode was pretty good. I am with Barnes, the cross cut scenese of the Father trying to shoot his wife, and the halfie in the park were really well done. I don't think I have ever seen something iike this in anything zombie related. A scene that truly makes you feel the pain of what it is like to see someone you know and a complete stranger (but a fellow human none the less) turned into such monsters.

I have read the graphic novels, and the drama gets worse. This isn't a touchy feely happy rainbows and sunshine bullshit story.

Actually one of the reasons I stopped reading the GNs was because nothing good ever happened in them, and it made me too depressed.

Dan