It has been said once or twice before in this column that I have a serious case of zombie fatigue. I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned it’s because of the massive influx of zombie related media that came out of nowhere in the last decade, but that’s only part of it. The other part which I don’t often mention to anybody is that I spent a good chunk of time working on a zombie themed novel. Lots of time doing research into places, which in turn led to many more hours detailing every possible situation that could occur and how each of those situations could be shafted by a sudden zombie appearance.
Towards the end of the time I spent on that novel I was given the first trade paperback of The Walking Dead, and like anything else that I get possession of I devoured it instantly, and that was the final step into full blown zombie fatigue.
Let me be absolutely clear: It wasn’t for any lack of quality I perceived in the comic. I found the comic to be both exhilarating and emotionally taxing in a way very, very few things are. Robert Kirkman, in my opinion, did for zombies what nobody else working in the ‘supernatural’ has done. There is a sea of monster media out there that all started at one point or another and invariably had people come along and try to take it in a different direction, hoping for their stuff to click in a way that says, “Yes, this is as good as it’s going to get.”
Bram Stoker took vampires and made them alluring. Anne Rice took vampires and made them sexy. Stephenie Meyer, say what you want about her, reached the mainstream audience in a way that had never been done before. Twilight vampires might not be the ideal end point for what most people think a vampire should be, but for a huge amount of people that’s it. That’s the end point.
Those are only three points on that particular road. You can see where other people tried to branch out with varying degrees of success: World of Darkness, Underworld, and Priest are some examples of that. It’s a similar road for zombies, albeit a much quicker one.
George A. Romero (and to a lesser extent John Russo) can be named as the main reason why zombies became so incredibly popular, and for a long time the idea of a zombie instantly brought Romero up. The man and concept were intrinsically linked. Then the spinoffs hit in full force.
Some of the spinoffs were flops. Some changed the nature of a zombie, letting them explore slightly different scenarios: what if zombies could run, or what if zombies were just incredibly pissed off people – and those were good, for the most part. But changing the nature of a zombie serves to lessen the overall terror of the idea, which is why the core of what a zombie is remains intact to this day.
That core is what Robert Kirkman nailed with The Walking Dead. He took the idea of a shuffling, unintelligent reanimated corpse with an insatiable hunger and the terror of that monster as a horde, and then used it as a backdrop instead of main event. The real magic came from the idea of real, human drama being the actual focus. The zombies, while an ever-present threat, aren’t what you’re supposed to care about. They could be anything deadly and the overall effect would be the same.
The comic worked so well for me as a reader that it was enough to give me half an epiphany. “That’s it,” I thought to myself. “I cannot do nearly as well as this.”
When The Walking Dead became adapted to a television series I gave the first episode a shot, and lost interest by the end of it. A Horde of zombies? Check. Waking up in a hospital sometime after the infection has become widespread? Check. The hero being rescued at the last minute by other survivors as they unwittingly put themselves in a dangerous situation? Check. There were enough of the checkboxes of a zombie product to cause that then familiar wave of fatigue to wash over me once again.
Fast forward to the present. The Walking Dead has returned from a mid-season hiatus and once again everybody is totally jazzed about it. I figured now was as good a time as any to give the show a second shot, and sat down and watched the first six episode season.
It’s OK.
That’s kind of the best I can say about it. Any show is going to have contrivances necessary to push the plot forward, but sometimes it’s glaringly ham-fisted. The worst offender of the first season had to be the grenade. She just happened to keep it pocketed the entire time after she washed his clothes? Just.. kept a live grenade on her, and never once thought to mention it until the exact moment they needed it?
I fully recognize that my slowly fading fatigue is making me watch the show with a far more critical eye than normally. Maybe I’ll have fewer issues with the second season, and by the end of it be eagerly waiting for the third. Maybe I’ll give up on it entirely, content in the knowledge that I gave the show a second shot. Hell, maybe something will click and I’ll be inspired to put pen to paper and finish that novel I mentioned.
That last one is, admittedly, a bit of a long shot.
So what’s up, readers? How you feeling about The Walking Dead? I know a lot of you love it, so lemme hear why. Maybe some of you feel about it the way I do and finally want to talk about it.
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