The Walking Dead
All Things Consider — By Daniel Strauss on November 10, 2010 at 4:33 pm
If you haven’t already watched it, I highly recommend The Walking Dead on AMC. The show, based on a comic book series, is about a small town sheriff who finds himself living in a zombie apocalypse. From then on he sets out to find his wife and son, who he stubbornly believes are still alive. In the process he meets survivors and a whole hell of a lot flesh-eating undead. I don’t know of any other zombie TV shows, but I’ve seen a few zombie movies, and The Walking Dead rivals most of them in terms of gore and bleakness. Adam Serwer summed up the show well in a recent blog post:
What was great about Kirkman’s comic is its relative lack of sentiment, its willingness to allow even its most compelling characters to meet gruesome ends while crushing the survivors under the weight of incomprehensible suffering in the face of a bleak, hopeless future. You turn the page because you can’t believe the people who are still alive are actually making it, and because you can’t wait to see the people they must become in order to do so.The Walking Dead is fundamentally a tragedy about how people become inhuman in order to survive, and for that to work, you need some characters who actually resemble human beings.
I’m a big fan of “dark” shows–I loved Battlestar Galactica up until the series finale, and I like Stargate Universe– but one worry I have with all of them is that their darkness doesn’t serve to illustrate something; they’re just being dark just for the shock value. And sure, there is something appealing about dark shows. They do seem much more realistic than your usual hour long TV show where everything is resolved in the last fifteen minutes or so. But I think those dark shows would be much more effective and fulfilling if they had hopeless settings for a reason, perhaps to comment on something about the world we live in or the human condition. Unfortunately, I think most dark shows don’t do this. In being dark, their intention is just to add a little edginess. That’s why I’m skeptical about Serwer’s description. Most shows in this genre aren’t that thoughtful, so why should The Walking Dead be any different? But maybe it’s too soon to say, if it does turn out to be dark and gory so that the viewer understands why the protagonists “become inhuman in order to survive,” The Walking Dead will really set itself apart from other TV shows.
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4 Comments
Matt,
You mentioned that well written drama is meant to “spark ponderance and discussion.” But I think well written drama is suppose to be entertaining and fun to watch. Other than that, I really do agree with you on the other points you make.
Shouldn’t well written drama do everything that’s been mentioned?
After two episodes of The Walking Dead, I’m thoroughly enjoying myself with AMC’s newest addition to its excellent original programming lineup that has come about over the last few years. However, some of the only elements of the show I can’t get on board with are those you describe as both absent and desirable.
The social commentary is in fact there. It’s the commentary inherent in nearly all movies and television dealing in post-apocalyptic settings, and The Walking Dead wears it on its sleeve in the second episode with the introduction of “the group” and subsequent interactions therein. Often, the mark of a good writer is in his or her understatement, and while Darabont is undoubtedly an accomplished and admirable writer, the stilted dialogue in the show comes across as heavy-handed and the prepackaged character drama (e.g. the racism subplot between T-Dog and Merle) just feels forced and overstated.
Hank Stuever’s review of the first two episodes in The Washington Post identifies these elements in his concluding paragraphs:
Indeed, astute social or political commentary is at times apt, and its effect is greatly enhanced when it can be used to add color to a story. At the point where the commentary is present at the expense of the story, however, a show runs the risk of being reduced to the role of a shoddy opinion piece.
This is where I agree with Stuever’s assessment and echo his sentiments. If the goal is to entertain via horror elements, then I hope it gets scarier, too. If the goal is to provide a compelling drama, then I hope the finer points of the story will be tightened up over the coming episodes, and the commentary will serve not as filler in the 42-minute episode, but to spark ponderance and discussion as well-written drama always does.
The bar has been set high in recent years at AMC with critically acclaimed shows like Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and Rubicon, serials that rivet viewers with their overarching story lines and magnetic character drama. This should be the focus for The Walking Dead, and in fulfilling the mandate first and foremost of telling a good story (the AMC mantra: Story Matters Here), the show will provide a gratifying experience for viewers.
Matt…your comment is so insightful that I feel like I should say something but I’m not sure what. Consider my initial response to be “What he said.”
But I’m optimistic about the show. I saw a clip on AMC’s website from the director who described the second episode as an action episode. Perhaps certain episodes will focus on action while others focus on social commentary. I’d be fine with that.
I’m with you and Stuever about the scare aspect. I’m grossed out and shocked by the show thus far but I haven’t jumped yet. I suppose that moment when our hero was in the tank and the soldier comes to life was a little chilling but I sort of saw it coming you know?
And as Stuever and Serwer point out, that racial subplot was completely unrealistic. It would be much more plausible if the racist put his differences aside so he could go on living. His logic would believably be that he only had to work with black folk temporarily.