Walking Dead: The De-Evolution of a Series

Let me just start right out: I'm a horror movie fan. I spent a whole series of posts last year defending the horror film, and I relish each October for the plethora of movies I can throw onto the DVR.

I have to say, though: it's hard to find good horror material. And with horror being a hot commodity right now (vampires are the current fad, but it looks like zombies are on the rise), that means there is even more garbage to wade through.

One former bright spot was The Walking Dead - a show I used to look forward to for its suspense, intrigue, and character dynamics... Now in its third season and more popular than ever, I fear that the show has jumped the shark, and I doubt the strong character traits and suspenseful moments of the first season and a half will be returning any time soon.

There are several issues... (1) Zombies have a limited shelf-life. As Roger Ebert once pointed out, zombies work better as comic figures (think Shaun of the Dead) because they're essentially moving props. They aren't characters really - they only want one thing, they can't learn or grow... in fact, all they can do is eat or die. Not much to do with a villain that thin. That's why any zombie movie, really, is just a survival movie. Barricade the doors, stock up on ammunition, etc. How you go about that can be interesting, and you can take the story to interesting places, but your options are very limited. (2) Walking Dead has gotten too big for its own good, and now it's starting to get repetitive... Again, it's a survival story. The first season and a half were tension-filled because information was hard to come by, everybody was on the run, and zombies were all over populated areas... As the characters gradually moved further and further into the outskirts (for a time they occupied a farmhouse), there were other issues to contend with. Food was scarce, trust even scarcer. Then, as reality had time to settle in, the characters had to confront the harsh truth: zombies are the new norm. No matter what, when they go to get food, when they seek recreation or even just housing, there's a chance of running into them...

They face two options: isolationism, or risk attack. You can do some interesting things, but I'm afraid the writers of the show have worn the options thin... The problem with isolationism in media is that, well, if your characters isolate themselves - once they're done, the whole point is they're safe. Nothing bad can happen. And that makes for poor drama... So, they spice things up a bit: missing characters, distrustful characters, power struggles, and so on. This works, for a time, but eventually those arcs play themselves out. What next? Well, in the case of Walking Dead, you start to repeat yourself. More power struggles, more missing characters, more distrust... Rather than the bucolic farmhouse, they find a stark prison. At first, this seems "perfect" - built-in fences and alarms, towers from which to stand guard - but already, after just a few episodes, the prison is wearing thin and the leader (Rick) is seeking some place better... "safer."

(3) The biggest problem, however, is focus. Just what is the show about? At first, it was a survival story. Would they survive? Could they survive? Just what the hell caused all this in the first place? Information is gradually being filled in, but there is no longer that driving arc which was present early on. Season One, for instance, is all about laying the groundwork... We meet the principals, get thrown into the apocalypse, and then everyone has to deal with it. There's a bit of a breather to give some general explanation, but otherwise everybody is just running, running, running... Season Two brought things to a standstill. It's more about the grind - how do you sustain health and longevity in a world like this? Add in the missing child and traumatic injuries/deaths to principal characters, and you've still got things moving and interesting...

Even then, though, the series started to falter. For a time, especially after the little girl was found, the "grind" became ponderous. It seemed like every episode was spent bemoaning the situation, how little hope there was, the lack of quality leadership, blah blah blah. I'm not saying these aren't important, real issues that people would face - but when multiple episodes drone on, it just gets old. Finally at the end, in the last two episodes, the show came back to life - killing off major characters and uprooting the principals from their idyllic farmhouse, but it may have been too little too late.

Enter Season Three. More and more characters are introduced - including a whole town of survivors where something so obviously sinister is going on that it boggles the mind none of the townspeople seem to realize it. The main group takes charge of the prison (which seems to have a literally endless supply of zombies... they claimed they were going to "clear it out" in the first two episodes, but there always seems to be a horde from nowhere whenever characters wander down dark halls), but nothing else has happened. Okay, people have died, but when you look at this from a "big picture" point of view, nothing has happened. What's the focus here? What is driving the story forward? Nothing, except that it's on, and there's an audience.

I joked a few weeks ago on Facebook that anyone who complains about gory movies obviously isn't watching television - and Walking Dead was the impetus behind that joke. Within literally one scene was more blood and gore than everything I've seen this year theatrically (and probably everything I've seen in the last two or three years) combined. Just non-stop. Decapitations galore, an on-screen field amputation, skulls split, faces cut in half... sprays of blood that put Kill Bill to shame.

Now... I've got nothing against gore. I really don't. I'm well versed in the ways of Dario Argento and Takashi Miike, I loved Wayne Kramer's Running Scared, I sat through Cannibal Holocaust... But everything has its place, and there are few things more annoying to watch than gore for gore's sake. Ichi: The Killer, Dead Alive - terrible, terrible movies. Why? Because they are, literally, non-stop gore. Each film has a story, so they're not like snuff films or anything, but the focus of the film is clearly the blood and guts. This may be fun and/or entertaining for some people, but from a narrative perspective it's just plain boring. You can't really develop a character or create compelling drama when your whole goal is to rip somebody apart with complete anatomical detail. This was the same problem I had with The Passion of the Christ - any chance of drama is cast aside to slowly torture and kill a character (yes, I lumped The Passion of the Christ in with Ichi: The Killer and Dead Alive - take that, Mel Gibson!).

And therein lies Walking Dead's problem... The focus this season is almost entirely on the gore, so it's really a pretty boring show to watch. SPOILER: Take the "birthing" episode a couple weeks ago. Lori was not the most popular character (there's a popular meme where people praise Daryl's parenting skills and chastise Lori's), but she was Rick's wife - a major player. It should be a big deal when she goes into labor, and an even bigger deal when she dies. But the whole focus was on the disgusting nature of the birth: how deep Maggie has to cut, how much blood Lori loses, and then of course the bullet Carl has to deliver ("artistically" omitted, of course).

The solution is easy... Just dial it back. The writers really need to take a look at this cast of characters and figure out what they all want and need, and more importantly - what's in the way. That's how you create a compelling show. I'm not expecting greatness here. Few shows can match the intelligence and intensity of something like Breaking Bad or The Wire, but it would be nice to try, right? Right now, they're a slave to the audience. Ratings are better than ever with the ridiculous violence, so why stop there? The show is in a mad race to one-up itself, and if the audience is happy, it will continue to do so...

Those of us who remember the strong, humble beginnings will have to subsist on gory mediocrity, hoping the story will one day return to its roots... or better yet, strike a balance between the two tones. Then you could really have something special.