A Reformation

Sometimes, you are surprised.

Not always pleasantly, I'll admit as much. But I stuck with it, The Walking Dead. And while I won't say that it's the best thing I've ever seen, it's shaping up well. I thought I would have abandoned it by now, dumped it on the side of the road like a dead badger, or the sad, forgotten promise of Glee. Season 1 didn't set me on fire. And I was open to it. I wanted it and was totally ripe for the picking. I hadn't been overexposed to the zombie genre, so by the time season 1 started, I was nowhere near annoyed with zombie tropes. My zombie experience was limited to watching Shaun of the Dead. Really. I don't like any sort of scary films. I don't watch them, I don't think of them. 10 minutes alone with Scream, or any other sort of lightweight thriller and I'm sleeping with a rolling-pin-as-makeshift-weapon under the bed for the next year. They terrify me.

I liked it at first. I liked most of the male characters. Except Shane. I liked the setting, I liked the concept. But the season wasn't very strong, and it didn't seem to go anywhere. The women are still a huge problem. Really, really huge. They are ALL annoying. Without exception. Whiny and moany, and useless. Sitting ducks. And I really don't like watching television shows with terrible female characters, it feels like such lazy writing.

I wasn't sure if I would come back for season 2. But I did. I was unimpressed with the pilots on offer, and I'd decided to drop Glee. I was also still on a downer from a summer without Mad Men, so I decided to give it a second chance.

And I'm glad that I did. It's not different, I'll say. It's the same as the first season. The women are terrible. Shane is terrible. They've made plot adjustments from the comics that seem...unwise. They've been sitting on a farm for what might possibly be the last five years doing nothing. But, I think I'm just getting used to it. Getting used to the pace, and what it has to offer. Daryl is just the best thing ever. I don't know if it's the fan love or if it was the intention all along, but they've transformed him from an annoying, rash redneck into an awesome, sympathetic, crossbow toting redneck.

So for now, I'll keep watching. And hope that it keeps on getting better. Fingers crossed!

So it Turns out....

Andrew Lincoln? Not so annoying after all. For the moment.

The Walking Dead is not flawless, by any stretch of the imagination. It's predictable, sometimes obvious and rather full of zombie cliches. Survivors grouping together in a department store. I feel like I've seen it all before and my exposure to zombie material is roughly zero. Not only that, but the stupidity exhibited by some of the characters makes them contenders for Moron of the Month after only 3 episodes.

Character stupidity is a hard one to overcome, particularly when it's only a device to further the plot. Camping in the woods with plentiful zombie ground cover is an exercise is stupidity, as is the concept that we would willingly believe that Merle, handcuffed on a roof with a hacksaw would choose to hack off his entire hand. Rather than his thumb, or even the rather flimsy looking chain between the cuffs. Add these to the fact that the protagonists wife, on hearing that he is dead, supposedly jumps straight into bed with his best friend.

Despite the high moron count and the zombie cliches, I find it thoroughly enjoyable. Is it the zombies? Are they just so interesting (and rarely done in a televisual serial) that all the other concerns are overridden? Is it the cast or the writing? I don't know. But I find it engaging, even when it's annoying me. Still, that can only last so long. And I tell you, if the survivors don't get a move on and start looking for somewhere a bit more sensible to hide (clue: anywhere else), my patience will probably run out.

But for now, with episode 4 to watch this evening, I shall be enjoying my own personal resurrection of Andrew Lincoln.

Zombies, Cont.

There is a reason I am uneducated in all things undead. <whispers> I'm a big girly wuss. I must be about 15 years behind my contemporaries - the things that scare me now are things that they were minorly bothered by terrified of at 15. They built up a resistance to scary stuff and moved on. I stagnated and just avoid, avoid, avoid.

As such, I am only half way through the first episode of The Walking Dead. Pathetic? Indeed.

It's the tension that scares me. Someone jumping out in the dark, not knowing what is around the corner. And so, this:

scared the pants right off me. It's like a televisual version of Silent Hill. <shudders>


I'll be watching the rest of The Walking Dead today.

In the daylight.