Today I will talk about the first season of AMC’s The Walking Dead, adapted from Robert Kirkman’s comic of the same name.
Walking Dead is one of those shows, like Dexter, that started strong, but quickly fell back on its own gimmick. In future seasons the pacing was ruined and as much action as possible is packed into each episode, which really softens the blows when they do come. This is possibly due to AMC’s attempt to appease its core audience, but also likely due to the shakeup in showrunners, as Frank Darabont was fired in 2011, a month into shooting for the second season.
The first season is adapted from the first six issues of Walking Dead, and the first episode, Days Gone Bye, is almost a shot-for-shot recreation of the comic book.
I found some nice comparisons from other blogs:
I recommend the black and white version of the pilot, because the lighting is so unique that it adds to the feeling of isolation in the opening sequence, but that’s beside the point.
The point is, they stuck to the script, and it actually worked pretty well.
From here they follow out the rest of the story from the first book, except at the end of the season, Shane, a villain from the first book, is not killed like he is in the comic. This upset some people, but it created one of the most compelling characters on TV for others.
Kirkman, who serves as an executive producer on the show, said that this is how he would have played it had he known the book would be a success.
Keeping Shane around kept a tension on the show that the zombies couldn’t create on their own, and it made his death at the end of season 2 that much more satisfying.
Another time the first season strays from the script is in the last episode of the first season, when the survivors come to a military complex working on a cure for the outbreak. Of course there is no cure and the man who runs the complex eventually decides to destroy the complex with our heroes inside. It sounds like a situation in a cheesy eighties movie, and it plays out like one too.
Another notable problem is the terrible southern accents, which are forgivable when you consider Andrew Lincoln’s Britishness (he’s married to the daughter of Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson!).
Ultimately though, the first season of Walking Dead is a strong season of television, and it’s involving enough to keep you watching into the later seasons to see what’s happening with the characters, even if you know the writing is going downhill.
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