The Walking Dead, Season 1, Episode 1: Days Gone Bye
While waiting for the post-mid-season-break for the superhero TV shows to be over, and my attempts at playing Warcraft III and Diablo II ending in a bit of a failure because I have to figure out how to get the ten-year-old games working on Windows 7 and that didn't go over well. I could work on the backlog of Transformers comics or finish playing Zelda: Hyrule Warriors or my re-play of Skyrim... or I could totally start off something new. Thus, Walking Dead. Honestly it was a flip between this and Lost, and it literally just came down to a coin flip.
I'm not sure how far into the Walking Dead I will be watching and reviewing. If it doesn't bore me, I will continue on... basically it'll all boil down to how much I like the show. The first season's only six episodes long and granted those episodes are one hour each, but hey.
Anyway, I know jack shit about the Walking Dead beyond that one Cooraaaal meme and the fact that it's about zombies. So, well, I'm walking into this show relatively blind. It's a pretty decent pilot episode... there really isn't much to talk about here, though. The episode basically touches on most of the zombie apocalypse tropes -- there's the scene with the abandoned hospital, an abandoned city, hiding out in a house in the suburbs, the main character Rick Grimes meeting up with a bunch of survivors, survivor camps, hints that it might be caused by a virus, you get turned if they bite you, they become more active at night... all that stuff.
Zombies honestly don't scare me at all, and I really shouldn't be too hard on the lack of spectacular effects on the pilot episode of a TV show released five or six years ago. But, y'know, the zombies don't scare me. Maybe it's because I see actual dead bodies on a semi-regular basis on account of my career, but hey. What really appeals to me from people's descriptions of this show is the apparently super-awesome character development. And I love that in a work of fiction, more than anything else. The zombie-shooting is just a nice bonus, because, hey, shooting zombies!
We mostly follow the sheriff Rick Grimes as he wakes up from a coma caused by a gunshot wound to a world that's, well, fighting zombies and shit. It's a nice POV, even if it necessitates a slower-paced first episode. Not that it's a problem, though. We see Rick as he walks around the deserted hospital (and wisely decides not to open the door marked with, well 'don't open dead inside') and starts to discover the zombies and whatnot. He's confused about it all, but the fact that he used to be a sheriff makes it somewhat believable that he's able to keep his head relatively cool as he deals with all the insanity around him. Rick's main character traits seem to be wanting to make up with his estranged wife and his son Caaaaarl, except that, well, he returns back to his home to discover that they're gone. Not dead, though, as his powers of astute observation informs him.
Rick meets up with a father-son team, Morgan and Duane, who's survived by just generally hunkering down in Rick's neighbourhood. They're decent, if rather confused, people who give Rick a couple of nice pointers on the behaviours of the zombies... er, walkers... though both Morgan and Rick point out that all Morgan is doing is, well, hiding when they could've been more proactive in looking and teaming up with other survivors. Throughout this episode Morgan also struggles with his zombified wife who's apparently smarter than the others, and while Rick gives him a rifle at the end of the episode Morgan can't bring himself to shoot his dead wife. Rick separates with the pair at the end of the episode and I'm honestly surprised that neither of the three died by the end of the pilot. No idea if Morgan and Duane will ever come up again in the future, but they're cool for the screentime they got.
After separating from Morgan and Duane, Rick reaches Atlanta on horseback, apparently supposed to be a safe zone... except, well, it's not. It's got your classic trope of a street filled with nothing but zombies and they ate Rick's horse and trample over his shotgun supplies. Rick manages to get into an oddly-conveniently placed tank which is a bit of a WTF situation, but it's a decent cliffhanger as a voice in the tank's radio talks to him.
Meanwhile, Rick's wife Lori and son Caaaaarl are part of a group of survivors that Rick's radio call manages to reach -- but not the other way around. Also with them is Rick's cop best buddy Shane, who is apparently banging Lori. Or at least kissing her passionately. Drama!
Overall it's a very atmospheric pilot designed to show the scope and the scale at which they're doing this. Keeping the focus to three characters for the most part of the episode and keeping the scenes mostly set in the suburbs set with the zombies being mostly harmless shambling ones that can't get through a locked door, before showing us how much more terrifying a proper horde of zombies can be in that nice abandoned city setting is a great way to film a pilot. Now whether the series can build on this pilot and be better, is a question that remains to be seen. Seeing that it's still around to this day, though, gives me hope.
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