Yes, I watch The Walking Dead

It may come as a shock to people who know me, as I'm not particularly fond of zombie movies and stories (I can't remember one that I actually liked, to be honest), but I love AMC's The Walking Dead.

I'm as shocked as anybody, really. I started watching it just out of curiousity--other people who I know don't dig zombies, either, were singing its praises--and got hooked. Now I've seen every available episode.

It's not like a Romero flick, really. The characters are complicated, the storylines deep and well thought out, and there hasn't really been a surprise twist yet that actually wasn't a logical turn for the story to take in retrospect. The writers play all sorts of tricks--they remind us that a story often has more than one side and to others our heroes may not, in fact, be heroes, and people--all of us, each and every one--are all complicated and multi-dimensional, from the biggest moron to the most highly intelligent scientist. People you kind of liked initially you'll wind up despising, and vice versa. I loathed Darrell in the beginning, for example, and now I think he's pretty cool. Not a rocket scientist or anything, but not really a bad guy.

Take what I'm calling Jeff's Walking Dead Challenge. Go to ITunes. Or Netflix. Or whatever. Download episode 1.06--it's called TS-19 and it's the finale to season one. Watch it. You will have tears in your eyes, even though at that point you won't know who these people are and whether you should give a shit about them or not. There's a scene at the end of the second act so well written and well acted that I can't describe it. In me it brought out all sorts of emotions--joy, longing, sadness, shock . . . just look for the playback of the MRI. You'll have to watch it to see what I'm referring to. Those couple of minutes really changed my perspective on a lot of things, actually, that really had nothing to do with the show. I don't remember the name of the guest star in that episode but he's one of those character actors who usually plays some kind of dork, but he was incredible. As is the regular cast.

After watching that you will want to go back and start at the beginning, and watch them all, I know you will. Yes, there are horrific scenes, gross scenes, even one or two stupid scenes. But, it's not an exploitive show--when they do something like that they have a reason to beyond just trying to gross out their audience. And actually it doesn't happen as often as you would think.

And, really, in this format zombies make for pretty scary bad guys. They are liable to pop up any damned where--they just wander around until something attracts them--so even if you are out in the middle of nowhere you can't relax your guard for even a second or you'll get eaten. Or at least bitten.

If the remainder of this season maintains this quality, and next season also stays at this level, I will start calling this the best show on TV. I won't have any choice. Take my challenge and see for yourself.

Lions and vampires and zombies oh my!

Okay, when did zombies become such a big thing?

I mean, I quit reading fiction for a while, and now when I dive back in it seems every other horror story is about some plague that wipes out most of humanity, turning them into zombies, and the survivors have to fight them to survive . . . granted, it can make for a dramatic story but it's been done. It's sort of like a sports movie--there are really only so many plots to that one and they've all been fleshed out and done to death. Pardon the pun.

Don't misunderstand. I don't have a problem with it. I just don't get the fascination. People must be buying it or the films wouldn't get made and the books wouldn't get published otherwise.

It does seem to be an excuse for a really hairy-chested story with lots of explosions and gunfire and that sort of thing, which I can certainly understand. And I don't mean "hairy-chested" in the literal sense, as I know many of the films have women in the starring role--which is another thing I think is positive about this whole thing. Though I don't especially care for these things myself.


So, somebody out there explain that one to me. Why do you dig this sort of thing? I'm not asking you to defend yourself--you are perfectly entitled to dig it if you do--I just want to know why it's so appealing.