The Walking Dead TV series is currently airing its fourth season with much anticipation. At first I didn’t really buy into the hype despite seeing a great trailer for it a few years ago. It took me a while to start the first season, and I became instantly hooked. There’s a lot of things that make it more than your average zombie show, and a lot of things that make it ridiculous.
Most fans would tell you that The Walking Dead (TWD) is a great show because it focuses on the characters of the show and not the zombies (walkers). This is very true, and a very common theme is that the walkers in TWD are a constant threat. They are out to eat flesh and that never changes. It creates an interesting parallel, because while the walkers are predictable, humans are not. In the world of TWD, your biggest threat or asset will be another human.
A great thing about the show is also how much the show emotionally invests in its characters. At any moment, any character may die. It could be a minor character that stars in one episode, or a character we’ve been with for a couple of seasons. Many of them have a back story, a start, and a finish. It’s an amazing tool to get us to empathize with many of the characters, even the villains.
Many of the main characters that we’ve followed from early on have gone through great changes. We see certain characters become warmer and much more loyal, while others become cold and distant. On the most recent episode, a recurring theme showed just how much the ensemble have changed. Many of the characters faced something they could not control, and were forced to accept things as they are. It’s very hard to tune in knowing that such great characters could die at any given moment. It’s a show where it’s most exciting when the characters that fans love are in danger.
While there is much reason for praise when it comes to TWD, it also requires us to suspend our disbelief quite a bit. Most of the plot (especially seasons 1-3) is driven by silly mistakes or plain stupidity. Certain situations could have been prevented if certain decisions were made properly, but instead we watch chaos unfold because of plain silliness. It’s a recurring plot device in TWD, but I can’t necessarily blame the show writers. If the characters aren’t in danger, it’s not as fun to watch.
Another issue is the lack of consistency with real life. It’s been established that the walkers are walking corpses. In reality, it’s quite easy to avoid a corpse driven apocalypse. They’re unable to think, slow, and predictable. As much as the show tries to make the characters feel helpless, sometimes I wonder where the vultures or other scavenging animals are to clean up the zombie mess. TWD seems to follow its own set of rules that the viewer must accept in order to enjoy the show.
Overall I really like TWD. It’s entertaining and the dialogue exchange between characters is fantastic. Its world is very different and lonely, and the sense of dread helps us suspend our disbelief long enough to fall in love.