After watching The Walking Dead marathon, I’ve thrown together a few thoughts on the way-too-brief, six-episode Season One. While the season had its ups and downs; it’s definitely not perfect, but it’s something to build upon. I’m happy it was even created in the first place.
That being said, Season One had its highs and lows, and both were highlighted in the episodes’ back-to-back airing on AMC last week. The season started off with a bang with the first two episodes (Pilot, Guts), then quickly went downhill with two terrible episodes (Tell it to the Frogs, Vatos). As a side note, when a story opens with a literal bang, having the main group of survivors fight a group of gangbangers, it sounds like a great, original idea. But when the thugs are revealed to be babysitters for elderly, nursing-home patients, all credibility (and believability) goes out the window. That being said, Vatos is the absolute worst episode of the season. Wildfire was painful to watch (but not as bad as Vatos) and IS-19 did a formidable job — decent, at best — rounding out the season.
With all of the off-season drama coming to a close, Series Creator/Showrunner Frank Darabont was fired and hopefully gone with him are all the terrible, terrible stereotypes. Continuing overused stereotypes is a cheap way to create drama and totally unnecessary when you actually have zombies as your main antagonist. With Season Two, I can only hope to have no more racists, wife-beaters or other unnamed stereotypes rear their ugly heads.
Can’t Wait For: The return of Merle, The return of Morgan and Dewayne, more backstory of Glenn and finally revealing the “secret” told to Rick by the CDC Doctor.
Best Actor Spotlight: Steven Yeun’s portrayal of Glenn, the former pizza delivery man is easily the best acting of the series. Glenn is the heart and soul of the series. This is a great character and one which we’ll get more of a backstory in Season Two… and possibly a love interest. Hopefully, Yeun will be nominated for his acting next season and his recognition in Hollywod should rise during the downtime of The Walking Dead.
Greatness of Season One: Uncertainty is a Virtue. Never giving the finer details of plots, having uncertainty of “why” things keep happening keeps the show moving and keeps the viewers guessing what will happen next. When the show moves briskly, it is successful.
Weakness of Season One: Trying to explain what is happening with logic. All details seem unreal; when the rules of the show are given, they are promptly broken in subsequent episodes. It’s best for the show to not even attempt to explain the situation.
Wrapping it up, the shortened Season One was good. It definitely had its learning curve, but once it hit its stride, it was great. Although it prides itself on the human drama aspect, let’s not foget a simple formula for success: non-stop action, all the time is good, especially when zombies are constantly after you.
Review: 3/5