The Walking Dead on AMC (part 2)

Some of this may come down to production costs. A show like The Walking Dead is pretty expensive and complicated to make at times. I know that they had to trim their sails a bit this last season. The only reason that they're able to sustain the costs is because the show is extremely popular.

But this trend of 12-13 episode seasons really began in America more with HBO dramas like the Sopranos and the Wire, and the model has now been adopted by other cable networks like AMC for shows like Mad Men. For my money, these shows are a much higher caliber of entertainment than your typical network fare, generally featuring better writing, acting, directing, production design, etc. It's a simple question of quality over quantity and I actually think the trend has been beneficial. The best of these shows have raised the bar for television, making it a more rich and rewarding medium, more comparable to film, except that with a serial program, you have more time to develop characters and complex plot lines. We do sometimes have to wait a long time for new episodes, which can potentially interrupt a show's momentum--the wait for the new season of Mad Men has been excruciating--but where ordinary network programming becomes more like a staple, these kinds of shows feel more like an event.

 

LOVE the Lady MacBeth tag!

I'm glad Scott Wilson survived too! They can keep him around to read the phone book aloud, if they like.

 

Well said.

 

I chuckled when Daryl called Lori "Olive Oil"! how appropriate for more ways than one...did he cover both bases or what? a skinny mini and torn between 2 lovers!

 

the looks she gave her hubby were anger inducing to say the least...what a turd that her character is...

 

There's the matter of the barn full of walkers -- some family. They were hiding, in denial and/or dreaming awake that what they imagined "out there" didn't exist or would pass. All of this driven by Herschel's faith. In fact, it was going rather well until Rick's group showed up. Of course, as we know from the bar scene it could have been a lot worse.

 

Thought this article hit some of our grievances pretty well:

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-reasons-the-walking-dead-has-to-get-better/

 

Couldn't disagree more. The show needs, if not a moral "center", at least a variety of moral perspectives to provide tension. Anyone watching this show just for a bunch of zombie action scenes is watching it for the wrong reason, as far as I'm concerned. Dale's lectures may have grown tiresome, but moral dilemmas (like whether to execute a prisoner or not), if handled deftly, are precisely what will elevate the series above its peers in the genre.

 

Hershel was a vet, and vets like medical doctors are often very involved in their work, almost to the point that they might not notice some things around them like a prison and hour+ drive away. I know here in rural Texas we have prisons all over the place, I didn't realize until recently that there was a private prison less than an hour away from where I live and I drove near it all the time. Anyway, it's also a show about zombies so not everything has to make sense.

 

I don't know where the nearest prison is either.

 

IMO, getting rid of Dale was a highlight of the show...in Zombieworld he was a true burden and a relic.

 

Dale was a good person, but he was also boring. We never got enough backstory for Dale to really care about him. All we got was his preachiness. So when he went, I didn't shed a tear.

Hershel, though we only have glimpses of his backstory, seems a lot more interesting. Like Dale he provides something of a moral center, but he's also conflicted by his religiosity, and he's clearly a complicated man with a past bout with what is implied to be alcoholism. When Hershel talks, I am interested. When Dale talks, I thought "yeah, he's got a point, but zzzzzzz......."

 

when he shed a tear for a man that had no problem attempting to kill the members in his pack...he lost me.

Hershel understood what was right and wrong...you protect your own first and foremost...no comparison there...

 

That's not what happened. He was shedding a tear for how this decision was going to affect the group, and future decision-making. The choice made in that scene would set a precedent that could potentially define the rest of their lives. Dale was rightly concerned about preserving what makes us human, which is a system of ethics that cannot be shelved when times get tough. "Protecting your own" is morality, Dale was concerned about ethics. There's an important difference there.

That is precisely the kind of thing I was talking about that helps to make The Walking Dead more than just another zombie apocalypse story.

 

Aw, I liked him because he was a passionate guy who stood up for what he believed in. You need the super-liberal bleeding heart element to balance the super-conservative redneck side. Having everybody on the "shoot-'em-first-and-ask-questions-later" side doesn't have nearly the same conflict. Yin & yang are important, especially in ensemble shows.

Note that Dale lasted a lot longer in the comic book, so it's clear that they're going in a somewhat different direction. In the comic book, there was a whole long subplot where his leg got bitten and had to be amputated before he turned into a zombie, and he hobbled around for quite some time on a wooden leg. Not so in the TV version.

 

Just an observation. Hershel must have fired off 50 rounds from that shotgun without reloading. Kind of like those old b-westerns where they never ran out of bullets and never reloaded. Thought the helicopter was a nice touch. Gave a subtle glimmer of hope that there is some kind of organized group of humans out there somewhere.

-Steve D.

 

This show is full of strange things like this. Some think it's sloppy/bad writing, some are accused of "nitpicking". Seriously though, while I wasn't bothered by that I did chuckle that the powers that be deemed it unnecessary to show at least a 1 second shot of him reloading his damn shot gun. Even Arnold reloads his in the Terminator.

Hershel more than made up the difference left by Shane's exit. I now have a new favorite character!

 

cool the slurs dude. and stop sneaking in POLITICAL innuendos as well...

sure, they should try and reason with the zombies who want to eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner before they shoot first.
great call!

yin and yang have no place in Zombieworld...

 

I was thinking the same thing...and where can we get one of those?

 

I respectfully disagree my friend...he was sobbing like a little girl for the dude...can't make it your way my friend...sorry.

 

If I remember correctly, no more than 3-4 zombies stacked up on the ground, too. Also the shear number of perfect shots made from a moving car window over a rough field. I don't know if it's on purpose or not, but the writers have successfully pulled me into make believe, comic book land. It's nothing more than an adult comic book and anything goes from here on out. From that viewpoint I can enjoy the show better and not complain about over-the-top events and what I feel may be mistakes.

 

also has this bit:

"Because so far, rather than exploring what shape society will take after the zombie apocalypse, or how real, complicated human beings deal with such an awful scenario, The Walking Dead has been more concerned with what happens when obnoxious cliches from different ethnic backgrounds have to be roommates. That's a fine premise for a show, The Walking Dead writers, but you were supposed to be making an apocalyptic drama; what you guys did was The Real World: Zombieland. The first two seasons haven't been exploring the greater themes of the undead so much as they've been turning the camera on Lori and T-Dog fighting about who left the cheese uncovered, while every once in a while a zombie wanders by in the background, peeks in the windows and decides it probably doesn't want to get involved."


Funny.. and true!

 

I suggest you watch "Judge, Jury, and Executioner" again. In every scene in which Dale made an argument for sparing Randall's life, he was making an ethical appeal aimed at preventing the group from losing its humanity. It's not about Randall personally, it's about how the issue would set precedent for preserving or discarding human rights and the ethical foundations of democracy.

Quotes:

• "You can't just decide on your own to take someone's life."
• "There's gotta be a process."
• "You think about your son, the message you're giving him. 'Shoot first, think later'?"
• "That's what a civilized society does. The world we know is gone, but keeping our humanity, that's a choice."
• "You can't stand by the sidelines, you're a man with convictions."
• "Killing him doesn't change that, but it changes us."
• "If we do this, we're saying there's no hope. Rule of law is dead. There is no civilization."
• "This is a young man's life, and it is worth more than a five minute conversation. Is this what it's come to? We kill someone because we can't decide what else to do with him?"
• "If we do this, the people that we were, the world that we knew, is dead. And this new world is ugly, it's harsh, it's survival of the fittest. That's a world I don't want to live in. I don't believe that any of you do. I can't. Please, let's just do what's right."

Anyone who's studied philosophy or law should recognize Dale's argument very well. These are arguments for maintaining a code of ethics, a social contract, in a state of nature. It was not about saving someone he cared for, it was about preserving civilization.

Saying he was "crying like a little girl for the dude" is a total mischaracterization.

 

my friend...you do realize they are not in the real world right?...walking dead eating the living cements that...no matter how you swing it, twist it, imagine it, want it, Dale was a lead weight around their necks...NOTHING in this show is real therefore injecting the "caring human", "civilized society" rant, etc. aspect is moot...their reality is kill a threat or die no matter if it was human or Zombie...all threats/potential threats were to be eliminated as they were in as much danger from outsiders as they were from zombies...real world ethics have no place in Zombieworld...

 

C'mon, this is exactly what they're doing in the show: creating characters at both extremes of the spectrum to stir up controversy. I'm taking no sides: there are good arguments for both positions, and I'm generally moderate but lean somewhat to the liberal side. In the show, it's a form of stereotyping, but I don't have a problem with it. Me personally, I'm very much for gun laws but also pro death penalty, and I'm also pro abortion. But I have no problem with shows that take on big issues and make it clear that decisions are tough, and life isn't always a "yes or no" situation.

(Though if it were up to me, I would've shot the kid in the barn.)

Read the comic. Shades of gray are always more interesting (and more thoughtful) than simple black and white issues. I'm reminded of Lost, where sometimes they'd take a "good" character, then reveal dark, troubling sides of his or her past; or they'd take a "bad" character, then make them very sympathetic characters by showing how they got that way, perhaps giving them good reasons for acting that way.

To me, 90% of the Walking Dead plotlines are about the people fighting with each other, not about the living fighting the zombies. This will be crystal clear once they get to the prison and beyond.

Yeah, I laughed out loud at that. At some point, you have to buy into some of the show as a deliberate satire and a wink at the audience. I don't have a problem with it. I mean, come on: it's a zombie show!