Wednesday 29 January 2014

TV Series Review: The Walking Dead Season One



Now for another review of one of my favourite series currently airing; The Walking Dead. This will be a review of just season one and there may be more SPOILERS in the one then any of my previous reviews.

The series is about a cop named Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) who gets shot and ends up in a coma for a couple of months, when he wakes up he finds the world has been taken over by zombies and most of humanity has been killed or turned. This season is mainly about the search for his family while trying to survive in this extremely hostile world.
The main characters for this include Rick Grimes, his best friend and former cop partner Shane Walsh (Jon Bernthal), his wife Lori Grimes (Sarah Wayne Callies) and his son Carl Grimes (Chandler Riggs). There are a lot of supporting characters as well such as Glenn Rhee (Steven Yeun), Andrea (Laurie Holden), Dale Horvath (Jeffrey DeMunn) and two original characters for the series; Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) and Merle Dixon (Michael Rooker). This season consists of only six episodes which I admit I found to be disappointing.
 
Overall the story is a very good one, I have read the Walking Dead comic books and I know it focuses on character develop and how they are dealing with this constant survival as much as it does with zombie. However there is something about the story that I know has been criticized by some fans and I am two minds about; they deviate a lot from the comic books.
This bold move does give fans of the comic something to watch that they do not know about and that is always good but sometimes it goes so much away from the source material that it can be an annoyance. For example Rick and Glenn in the comics go back to Atlanta to raid a gun store but in the series it makes that experience an entire episode by including a run in with an annoying Hispanic gang. I just did not like that change at all and also near they end they donate another episode to a visit to the CDC which was interesting but again I found it an unnecessary deviation from the source material.
 
For the characters they are cast really well with stand outs going to Rick and Shane and the interaction between those two; the affair that Shane has with Rick’s wife is expanded in the series and that I think was a good move. The other characters do a really good job as well, a lot of people will find the character of Lori to be unpopular and an annoying bitch but she is very much like this in the comics any way so I did not mind.
However a complete miscast in this has to be Laurie Holden as Andrea, in the comics Andrea is supposed to be in her mid to late twenties yet they give the part to someone around forty which would not have mattered except in this series she definitely looks it. Not only that but Andrea in the comics is supposed to be a clerk at a law firm who over time becomes an expert survivalist with a gun but in the series they decide to stick her with a gun straight away and she pretends to be such an expert with it from the beginning even though she has no experience what so ever. Not to mention she is so damn stuck up and hostile towards anyone who thinks she might a little helpless.
A great addition to the cast is the character Daryl Dixon, the first scene I saw him in I knew he was going to be a fan favourite and time has proved me right. He is a born hunter and survivalist who, unlike Andrea, knows how to deal with the situation because he already has years of necessary experience. He is reckless but he is also very useful and someone you want on your side fighting zombies, he is a something new not from the comics that I do not mind being in the series. I hope his character is around for a very, very, very, very long time.  

The music in this goes very well with the story especially the series main/opening theme which has become one of my favourites. The settings are really nice as well but are limited to only Atlanta and its surrounding forest area. However the amount of detail that goes in to the make up of zombies and trying to make the city look has destroyed as possible is truly impressive.

Overall this is one of my favourite series airing right now and I recommend the first season to any one who wants to get in to the zombie genre. It does however suffer slightly from a few annoy characters, only six episodes and original story lines that I felt where just unnecessary when they could have stick closer to the comics.
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