The Walking Dead – Keeping It Real
The new episodic series, hosting herds of zombies aimlessly wandering the earth, and a rag tag group of living survivors desirous of a safe haven, is fun fare. As someone who grew up on the writings of Richard Matheson, the movie magic of George Romero (not to forget Charlton Heston in the Omega Man, and of course Vincent Price and Will Smith in I Am Legend), I thoroughly enjoy watching this new series. While there are some critiques claiming The Walking Dead as old hat, saying that it is already wearing thin in it’s storyline, I say not so! In fact, I believe the series exploration into real life human responses to not so real circumstances is a brilliant approach to an old concept. I’ll go one step further and suggest that if they continue to apply that recipe (solid story lines, constant revelations layered with all the subtleties of human emotion) they’ll have a series that not only attracts devoted zombie fans, but a host of neo-zombie fans as well; people, yes even woman, who would typically never watch something this grotesque. If I were the writers of this series, I would continue to explore the relationships between their unwitting survivors, at every visceral level, and be careful of culling the members of this little family. We viewers need our connection.
Lastly, as a parent and a grandparent; I understand that we live in a jaded society that has been completely desensitized by the gruesome images we have experienced from movies, television and the news; I have to say that this series isn’t for the timid or the young. And by young I am suggesting that The Walking Dead should have a television rating much higher that tv-14. Clearly the rating isn’t sufficient. I believe the series would still be exciting, even with no beheadings or axes smashing into the middle of some non-human zombie’s skull. The writing is brilliant and the directing as well. So just dial back the some of the gore and continue to dial up the human relationships! Congrats on very interesting series!
