The Walking Dead: Episode One
"Days Gone By"
Board up the windows and find a sturdy shovel. The zombies are coming! The zombies are coming! And boy, are they hungry.This isn't your momma's AMC. No longer is this once considered obscure, classic movie channel all about reruns of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby on the "Road to" anywhere. Previously proven with the award winning and critically acclaimed series Mad Men, AMC is now in the television business and with their newest original programming The Walking Dead, they are now in the flesh eating, zombie business.
Part post-apocalyptic pandemic devastation, part classic undead invasion, but mostly survival of the quickest, The Walking Dead is nothing new in the world of zombie lore. The real excitement surrounding this show, is that for the first time in recent memory someone finally thought to bring horror to episodic television. So, even though the zombies are the same slack-jawed, staggering undead half-wits we have seen and adored since George Romero's Night of the Living Dead premiered in 1968, The Walking Dead is a television triumph but only because it's standing on the shoulders of zombie giants.
The cinematography is the same quality that one would see in any modern-day major motion picture, following in the cinematic footsteps of such popular shows as The Sopranos, Battlestar Galactica and even AMC's own Mad Men. Whether it was a blinking florescent light illuminating the half eaten corpse of a woman sprawled out in a hospital hallway or the peek of fingertips poking through pad-locked cafeteria doors, Walking Dead takes its slow, patient time building tension and setting an eerie mood. Adding to the pulse pumping tension, is none other than composer Bear McCreary, who also created the score for the Sci Fi channel smash Battlestar Galactica.
There are several goosebump moments from writer/director Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption), but the most mentionable has to be when deputy sheriff Rick Grimes (played by Andrew Lincoln of previous Love Actually fame) ditches his broken down vehicle for a horse and rides with the reckless abandon of a cowboy from the old west into imminent danger of a mob of starving city zombies.
The Walking Dead is a thoughtful, creative new show floating in a cess pool of Two and a Half Men and The Real Housewives. Thank you AMC and welcome you horror movie fans to episodic television. Enjoy the weekly cliffhangers, use DVR to skip the commercials and oh, beware, killing zombies is an extremely gory business, so make sure to skip a snack while viewing.
