Walking Dead, The – Season 1

Posted May 25, 2012 by Speed - 0 comments

After having been shot following a high speed car chase, Deputy Sheriff Rick Grimes wakes up in the hospital to find it completely abandoned. While wandering around a bit, he meets Morgan Jones and his son who tell them the world has been overrun by zombies. Having found his house deserted, with even the family picture albums missing, Grimes is convinced his wife and son are still alive and he decides head off to Atlanta, where supposedly the military have set up a shelter to protect the remaining humans, in the hopes of finding his family there.

Sound and Vision:
The image of The Walking Dead is quite inconsistent that the episodes on the first disc look plain ugly, lack detail, are very soft and contain a lot of grain. The episodes on the second disc (towards the end of the first season) improve already a bit but still don’t look all too great. The murky look of course can be a choice of the makers – and it does help set the atmosphere up to a certain level – but it doesn’t explain why the later episodes look better. Overall, the image definitely isn’t up to par with recent TV series, even if it was an intentional move.

The sound is better, with clear dialogues and good use of the surround channels for some effects and the great music from Bear McCreary.

Extras:
– The Making of The Walking Dead
– Inside the Walking Dead: Episodes 1-6
– A Sneak Peak with Robert Kirkman
– Behind the scenes Zombie Make-up tips
– Convention panel with Producers
– Zombie School
– Bicycle Girl
– On Set with Robert Kirkman
– Hanging with Steven Yeun
– Inside Dale’s RV
– On Set with Andrew Lincoln

Conclusion:
It’s strange that there have been so many zombie movies over the years but no TV shows. With The Walking Dead, that has now changed and while you might wonder whether flesh-eating brainless creatures could make for an interesting show, you can rest assured: it does.

The makers, with Frank Darabont in the lead, have made the wise decision to have the gore and violence only set up as a premise for human drama and focus on the human characters and their interaction in difficult times rather than on the zombies and it works extremely well. The series doesn’t contain any high profile stars, but the cast do an excellent job in making their characters believable and also the script is well-written, providing drama that’s just deep enough to get you drawn in without getting all too emotional.

The Walking Dead is a slow show and with only six (45 minute) episodes in the first season, you can almost see it as a prolonged movie but it works and that’s what counts. The Walking Dead is more than just zombies and gore, it’s drama of top quality and definitely a show to check out if you’ve got the stomache to look beyond the ugly faces of the flesh-eating walkers.

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