The Walking Dead
Good morning, y’all. While being ill this past week or so, I’ve reflected on the frailty of the human condition, mine in particular. It seems so unfair that something so small that you need a microscopic to see it could bring a man of my size to the fetal position.
It’s not just the physical aspects of being ill. After being sick for a few days, I get in this mental state that I will call “quiet desperation”. Others may disagree with my description of “quiet”, but I am desperate to start feeling better. The anxiety produced by being sick, and not being able to shake it quickly, makes me manic in the attempts to get relief quickly. If two Tylenol are recommended, would four be better? If two tablespoons of Tussin-DM every four hours is the required dosage, would four tablespoons every two hours not just speed up my recovery? Like I said, I get a little manic. About the only way I can calm the beast is to treat my “down time” as an opportunity to catch up on my reading.
I don’t read enough, I bet none of us do really. TV is just too darn easy. Somebody has already packaged the message, and if we don’t feel their slant is too odious, we accept the knowledge and move on. None of us carries the exposure to a new topic on TV to the next level. Who goes to the library to explore all of the material available on the subject? Certainly not me. I’m proud of myself when I Google a topic and read what has been packaged for me there. Even Wikipedia is somewhat sanitized, I find. I don’t doubt Wikipedia, or their intentions, I just don’t think some topics can be glossed over in a thousand words or less. Some topics require an in depth analysis to understand the true nature of the issue.
Which brings us to the Zombie Apocalypse. As mentioned many times before, I am a big fan of horror movies, and I have a special affinity for Zombie movies. When the “Walking Dead” series started on TV, I was ecstatic. The fact that it’s filmed here in Georgia is just icing on the cake. The fact that a show about the undead has become the top rated series is kind of phenomenal. The TV show has taken the comic books series and brought it to “life”, so’s to speak. The realistic special effects and the producers commitment to produce a quality series has been evident since episode one. We’re not talking about green screen footage or computer generated action, we’re talking old school acting with sets and lots of extras. Generally speaking, they’ve left me little room to complain about production.
Now, they have left me some room to complain about plot. I think the fourth season was the one I refer to as the “angst” season. I mean, episode after episode was focused on a character’s mental state. Tyreese has a “sad”, Carol has a “sad”, Glenn has a “sad”. Jeez Louise, the world is overrun by Zombies, can we all agree that anyone would be depressed in that situation? I speculated at the time that all of the good writers had gone to write for the spinoff, “Fear The Walking Dead”. Having now watched the “Fear” series, I now believe that all of the good writers just took a year off. Based off of the first few episodes of this season, the good writers appear to be back. We’ll see if they can maintain the quality for the whole season.
There’s probably hundreds of questions that could be asked about the mental state of a country that seems to thrive on all things Zombie. I mean, I know I’m weird, but I don’t appear to be in the minority anymore. In fact, the Walking Dead comic books have been published as anthologies for those of us who missed the comics when they came out. I have been gifted the anthologies, and I used my down time this past week to get through the first book. Wow, what a treasure. I hope all “Walking Dead – Dead Heads” have the opportunity to read the comics. They are very well done. The TV series has a lot to live up to.
To put a bow on this, if I had not done further research on a topic that I was originally exposed to on TV, I would have never learned that Lori and Judith died at the battle for the prison. That, and the fact that Rick is now known as “Lefty”. I won’t give that one away, you’ll just have to read it for yourself.