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Revenge of the couch potatoes
TV's 'Walking Dead': Why kill zombies?
Rick Soisson
The corpses are stacking up like cordwood again in "The Walking Dead," the popular zombie TV series on the American Movie Classics channel.
The show's third season recently opened with the survivors of a zombie war fighting their way into a prison, clearing a great part of the area of "walkers." Fifty staggering corpses at minimum hit the dust, many of them taking pikes through their eyeballs. These very explicit "killings" of zombies (who by definition are already dead) were followed by whoops of delight from their human killers.
The season's second show followed up with more zombie gore and the actual murder of living prisoners discovered in the new home of Rick and his family, the show's genuinely human protagonists. In this instance the humans killed were deemed infected by the dead, or they were perceived as clear threats to the show's core band of survivalists. (A particularly vicious prisoner who attempted to assassinate Rick with a zombie proxy was treated to a split skull, sans actual warning.)
Is it all too much?
The lost 12-year-old
Zombie films customarily tend to be all gore and little meaningful human action. My previous favorite was The Return of the Living Dead (1985), a hilarious send-up of the genre starring Frank Karen, Beverly Randolph and Clu Gulager.
"The Walking Dead," however, seems to be willing to tackle the "zombie issue" with some seriousness. In effect it asks: What would happen if a zombie apocalypse really occurred? What if it didn't end in 90 minutes?
What if it examined true human reactions to absolutely horrid circumstances, like a 12-year-old detached from Rick's group and lost in Zombie Land? How about suicidal impulses among the survivors? How about a survivors' love triangle?
"The Walking Dead" is actually a show about the humans who fight the zombies. The zombies are merely dripping window dressing"“ with the notable exception of that 12-year-old, who, when found, has actually joined the walking dead. That made for the most affecting episode yet, in fact.
How will you die?
More than 10 million viewers reportedly watched the recent season premiere of "The Walking Dead." That figure about doubled the number of viewers for the premiere episode in 2010. What are these people looking for?
If you think of all the dead in this show as a kind of metaphor for death itself, then their generalized "slaughter" no longer feels like the murder of humans. It's more like battling death itself, with weapons"“ something few of us will ever do, outside of Afghanistan.
Many of us will die hooked up to machines without any weapons to fight off the inevitable. Some of us will die quickly on the street, as though a zombie took us from behind. Generally, though, no fighting. The polar opposite of our likely death experience is what makes this show intriguing.
The show's third season recently opened with the survivors of a zombie war fighting their way into a prison, clearing a great part of the area of "walkers." Fifty staggering corpses at minimum hit the dust, many of them taking pikes through their eyeballs. These very explicit "killings" of zombies (who by definition are already dead) were followed by whoops of delight from their human killers.
The season's second show followed up with more zombie gore and the actual murder of living prisoners discovered in the new home of Rick and his family, the show's genuinely human protagonists. In this instance the humans killed were deemed infected by the dead, or they were perceived as clear threats to the show's core band of survivalists. (A particularly vicious prisoner who attempted to assassinate Rick with a zombie proxy was treated to a split skull, sans actual warning.)
Is it all too much?
The lost 12-year-old
Zombie films customarily tend to be all gore and little meaningful human action. My previous favorite was The Return of the Living Dead (1985), a hilarious send-up of the genre starring Frank Karen, Beverly Randolph and Clu Gulager.
"The Walking Dead," however, seems to be willing to tackle the "zombie issue" with some seriousness. In effect it asks: What would happen if a zombie apocalypse really occurred? What if it didn't end in 90 minutes?
What if it examined true human reactions to absolutely horrid circumstances, like a 12-year-old detached from Rick's group and lost in Zombie Land? How about suicidal impulses among the survivors? How about a survivors' love triangle?
"The Walking Dead" is actually a show about the humans who fight the zombies. The zombies are merely dripping window dressing"“ with the notable exception of that 12-year-old, who, when found, has actually joined the walking dead. That made for the most affecting episode yet, in fact.
How will you die?
More than 10 million viewers reportedly watched the recent season premiere of "The Walking Dead." That figure about doubled the number of viewers for the premiere episode in 2010. What are these people looking for?
If you think of all the dead in this show as a kind of metaphor for death itself, then their generalized "slaughter" no longer feels like the murder of humans. It's more like battling death itself, with weapons"“ something few of us will ever do, outside of Afghanistan.
Many of us will die hooked up to machines without any weapons to fight off the inevitable. Some of us will die quickly on the street, as though a zombie took us from behind. Generally, though, no fighting. The polar opposite of our likely death experience is what makes this show intriguing.
What, When, Where
"The Walking Dead." Sundays at 9 on AMC Channel. www.amctv.com.
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