The Walking Dead (Season 1)

Shortly after reading the 15th TPB "We Find Ourselves," I finally got around to watching the first season of AMC's The Walking Dead. I had heard from friends who had already watched it that (WARNING: SPOILERS FROM THE COMIC) the first season still sees the crew just outside of Atlanta, with Shane alive and well, Rick and Lori still in reunited bliss, and strangely, coming off the heels of an added adventure to the CDC. I felt they must be milking it--how could it go an entire season without even making it out of Atlanta? But of course, my concern with the comic had been that the pacing had been too quick--this was the solution to my speed-reading ways.

It was strange to see all the characters with whom I'm so familiar back again in their softer, shinier forms, before the circumstances of their lives and deaths had changed them inside and out. I'm already starting to see some of the characteristics of what will define them later in the series, though perhaps that's me projecting a bit.

My only frustration thus far has been the character of Jenner at the CDC. I understand the need to sometimes adapt a storyline significantly for television. I understand they needed to pace the meta-story differently for mass audiences. I was totally fine with the CDC storyline on the whole. Always down for more of a story I've grown to really enjoy.

What I was not fine with was Jenner's apparent insanity. The series is not short for characters with a death wish for themselves or for others. There were plenty of "what the fuck" moments in the first six episodes to appease even the most disturbed audience members. It simply felt unnecessary to me, and I feel it will take away some of the power of some of the characters we meet later in the series, such as Davidson. If nothing else, I wish we had had some foreknowledge that shit might get nuts, some inkling that something was off about Jenner. Yes, he mentioned that he may commit suicide, but in the face of so much death, so much isolation, and so little power to change his circumstances, I think most of the audience felt his decision to kill himself was reasonable--painful, but not without logic. Scary that a show can make us sympathetic to such a decision. Deciding he could choose whether an additional 20 people live or die, however, and giving them no meaningful forewarning, felt like an impromptu script change not unlike when the LOST writers lost their way a bit in Season 2. It felt reactionary, though I'm not sure it would be in reaction to if not simply apathy for the storyline.

It seems to me The Walking Dead will be on for quite a while, as I've heard they've only just now introduced Michonne at the end of Season 2. I've found I can only watch an episode or two in a row on account of the intensity (and sure, probably the guts too, seeing as I'm usually eating when I watch TV.) All the same, I'm excited for Season 2 to show up on Netflix Instant.