3 Things AMC’s The Walking Dead Taught Me About Television
Come and gone is another Season, (half-season) of AMC’s The Walking Dead. The post apocalyptic drama that everyone loves to hate, and by everyone I mean me.
The first thing anyone should know about The Walking Dead is that you should never watch it in the same room as me, it’s almost as unpleasant as living along side of Rick, Shane, Glenn and all the other survivors in a world filled with groaning cannibals. So now that the hit series is taking a mid-season break, what have we learned from living amongst the dead? Spoilers after the bump
1. It’s all about the money: The Walking Dead is a strange story to adapt. By its very nature it could never be a motion picture or even series of films. One of the biggest draws to the franchise is that it depicts survivors of a zombie outbreak over a longer duration of time than other notable undead films do. At it’s heart The Walking Dead is about the lengthy struggle to maintain humanity in a ghoulish world. Romero’s Of The Dead series has also been socially aware, but not to the extent of Kirkman’s Walking. Where else do we see children grow up surrounded by such horrors? But back to my point: The Walking Dead works as a television show because its style of story telling is better suited as episodic season arcs than a 2hour blockbuster.
But there is another side of television that seriously drags The Walking Dead back into it’s grave: Budgeting. While TWD seems like it fits perfectly next to other AMC originals such as Mad Men and Breaking Bad, there is at least one important difference, neither of those other shows are actually property of AMC. (Breaking Bad for instance is owned by Sony Television.) The network has been playing fast and loose with the shows budget, offering zany script notes such as suggesting to film half of each episode indoors, and creating a purposeless growth known as The Talking Dead. The “Talking” Dead is just as lame as it sounds, hosted by Wired’s Chris Hardwick the live chat show is a televised discussion of the show intended for fans… who would normally just talk about each episode y'know on the Internet but AMC hasn’t figured out how to put commercials in-between Reddit threads just yet.
You would think I would be done talking about the money by now wouldn’t you? Nope. The Walking Dead is actually given revenue just for filming on location in Georgia. Allegedly this money is not generated back into the program but instead pocketed by AMC. Don’t get me started on the dark and mysterious firing of season 1 director Frank Darabont…
2. Good Guy Rick and Scumbag Shane is getting old fast: I am first and foremost a fan of Robert Kirkman’s monthly Walking Dead. I’ve followed it for years and over that time the main characters have grown and evolved into who they become more than a year after living in a Zed colored world. Rick Grimes in issue 90 is nothing like Rick Grimes of Season 2, and of course he isn’t. These characters are supposed to grow through all the troubles and atrocities the post apocalyptic lifestyle. One of those being, (I warned you about spoilers TV viewers,) the death of his best friend Shane. It’s kind of hard for Rick to grow as a character when Shane has been sticking around for a much longer than he should. If we go by the source material, (lets just pretend someone at AMC cares about the book,) Shane should be six feet under just as the Atlanta gang moseyed out of the first camp.
In Season 2, Rick is perpetually stuck in his “good guy” role that you would expect him to have pre-flesh eating horde world. What’s worse is that these traits have been cranked to eleven. Seriously re-watch episode 2 Bloodletting and 3 Save the Last One, of course Rick would give as much blood as possible to his wounded son. But to palely flop around the farm house trying to help every person with a problem, especially the guy who just shot Carl, makes Rick way too nice.
Shane on other hand has done nothing but ruin every character and plot he’s been a part of. Seriously, I’m not going to get into details, just ask yourself this. Name one thing he’s done this year that benefitted anyone without also endangering another? You can’t, I dare you.
3. Merle is not the Governor, he’s the Smoke Monster: Back in season 1 we were introduced to Merle, the lovable southern rooftop racist. But before any love could blossom between the king of all hicks and standards and practices, he was quickly disappeared. With this character missing, Rick and Co. focused on more important matters, the Vatos. But unlike Glenn and T-Dog, the Internet never forgets. Online, it was long suspected that the one handed Merle might reappear as Rick’s personal Darth Vader “The Governor."
Instead our grizzled hill billy now appears in visions to his much more successful brother, and viewer favorite Daryl. WHY IS THIS HAPPENING? Seriously, sure there are instances in the comic where some characters imagine talking to their lost loved ones in order to cope, but Kirkman has never penned a single conversation with a full on apparition.
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