.return of the walking dead

deep space

Really enjoyed the season's opening of Walking Dead. Kinda makes me long for a zombie RPG a la mode de Bioware (or comparable/better ludonarrative-centric developer?) or, you know, what Dead Island should have been.

Though for all its awesome production value, strong cinematic style, and general nerd-bait appeal, there are a couple things that already bummed me out about WD:

- Rick. Specifically, the words he says. His opening monologue and the scene toward the end are eye-rollingly melodramatic. I like him enough as a character; father, unknowing husband to an adulterous wife, mostly-undisputed leader of the survivors—it's just that, compared to most of the other characters, a lot of his lines seem so unbelievable and soap operatic.
- Calling zombies "walkers." Just ... stop. Every time someone says "walkers," I expect a whip-pan to a horde of roundhouse-kicking Chuck Norrises. No one watching the show is going to get confused by the Zed word, and "walkers" just sounds so unnatural and corny.
- I could —and hope to be—wrong about this, but the last few scenes of S2E1 made me a bit suspicious that we're in for a "crazy religious people" saga. I'll hold out for next week's episode before getting too negative, but I'd consider it a triumph for the zombie/horror subgenre if we could leave out the community of over-the-top, KJV-spewing nutjobs who take in the survivors only to eventually blame them for bringing down "the wrath of God" on the world, and then try to kill them/kick them out. This tired trope is a facepalm circus, and actually a WAY less interesting side-plot than exploring how an actual, Biblical-literate Christian (or person of any faith for that matter) would act in a zombie-occupied world.

I've got high hopes for this season, and if I seem overly-nit-picky it's only because I like the show so much. I often find myself going back and watching certain shots because of their cool deep-space compositions or clever framing. And despite being something of a desensitized zombie media expert, every walker encounter makes me delightfully tense, and most of the character interactions seem fresh and genuine enough. The fact that the show is ABOUT the survivors and not just quip-laden, silly zombicide is really enough to get me excited about it. There's just enough drama to make the action exciting, and just enough gore to make the threat more threatening without feeling gratuitous. Bring on episode 2!