The Walking Dead Episode #1 – Review

Review: Every comic book fan knows the feeling. The initial excitement when we hear that a beloved comic is going to be adapted into film or TV show followed by the awful ‘what if they fuck it up??’ feeling.  We’ve had a lot of punches to the gut before where the product was just awful (Daredevil) or the movie was kinda good, but very different than the comic (Wanted).

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been disappointed enough that I almost don’t want to recommend these films/shows to non-comics friends for fear that they’ll suck ass and you’ll end up mumbling, “Yeah, it was bad, but they kinda screwed up what happened in the comic book and missed the whole point of… blah, blah, blah…”

So, I had a lot of fear going into the premiere of The Walking Dead.  Would “they” understand that the comic isn’t really about zombies, but an examination of the human condition?  Would they capture the feeling of loss and family and not-knowing that has made the comic great or would they just have Rick running from zombies?  Would they have enough of an effects budget to make the zombies look good?  Would it seem funny to see TWD in color (since the comic is B&W)?

I needn’t have worried.  The first episode was just flat out awesome.  I LOVED it and it hit all the right notes for me.  But, if you’re making a TV show only for the ~50,000 people in the U.S. who have read every single issue of TWD, your ratings might suck.  The trick is to make something that non-comic fans enjoy and that’s what the TV series did. The real winning moment for me with this show was that my wife loved it too.

She has zero interest in comics, never reads comics I suggest to her, etc…  She knew that I really wanted to watch this show, but made no real effort to be in her seat when the show began.  I was so eager that I didn’t bother to wait, but after she tolerated my “that’s very different than the comic” nerd muttering from the other end of the couch, she loved it too.  AMC might have a real winner on its hands if they can satisfy the two of us!  On a side note, what a winning streak for AMC: Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Rubicon and now TWD.  These sorts of shows are SOOOOO much better than anything you can get on network TV.

The plot for the pilot episode is ripped straight from the comics and is simple enough.  Rick Grimes is a small town sheriff’s deputy who is shot on duty, goes into a coma and awakens in a trashed hospital with nothing but zombies.  He briefly seeks shelter with a man and his son who are living in one of his neighbor’s homes before setting off for Atlanta in hopes of finding his wife and son.  Probably one of the things making this show “work” is that the plot is just that simple.

There are only a few actors who have much of a role in this pilot and Andrew Lincoln just nails it as Rick.  He looks the part and within several minutes my eyes (which have gazed upon every page of TWD) and ears had accepted him as Rick.  We’ll have to wait and see how Lincoln does with “angry Rick” and “crazy Rick” but he sells “distraught-and-confused Rick” very nicely.  The actors playing Morgan and Duane also did well, but it took me a bit longer to accept them.  The only outlier from a casting standpoint was Jon Bernthal as Shane.  I always thought of Shane as a big, kinda redneck boy and not someone who is ruggedly non-WASPy like Bernthal.  I’ve enjoyed Bernthal in other stuff he’s done and there is no rule that says everyone MUST look just like they do in the comic, so we’ll see…