My thoughts on The Walking Dead premiere episode...

Well, finally after all my chatter and hype I finally watched it.  I found it chilling, a bit slow, but very chilling and somewhat sad.

Let me get the slow part out of the way.  I've read the entire The Walking Dead series so far and for the most part, I'm on the edge of my seat while reading it and can't stop until the graphic novel is complete.  Then I wait months eagerly anticipating the next release.  The story is quite intense and very much a page turner.  This first episode I found a bit slow at times, although I had hyped it up in my own mind and I can see why someone who isn't familiar with the source material would find it boring.  Relax people, it's the first episode and there are a tonne of great storylines to come.  Just wait till we get to the Prison, that's all I'm going to say about that.  But I found the pace of the episode slow and checked to see how much time was left a couple of times, because I knew how the episode ended and I knew that scene was very intense.  But like I said it's the first episode and we're just getting to know our main character Rick and we're setting up just how huge this zombie apocalypse is.  We're also getting a glimpse into just how lonely these people are.

Darabont directed an episode that made the world feel so empty and the lack of a soundtrack I found haunting, a song might have been played 3 or 4 times in the 75 minutes.  But that was it.   The episode was so quiet, I had to turn it up a few times because I felt I might have been missing something.  But alas, there was nothing to miss, a bird chirping here and there but that's all there was.  No human created noises that we're used to and that was really freaking me out.  It made the world feel so large and so empty all at the same time. It made me feel for Rick as it truly showed just how alone he was and the few shots of the military camps that had been destroyed showed me just how much trouble the human race was in.  If the Army couldn't protect us, what hope do we have to survive this outbreak.  How is this one man going to find his wife and son?   And if he does find them, then what?  The back and forth shots of Rick with the zombie in the park and Morgan battling with shooting his wife was just so heartbreaking, part of you wonders if there is any way to fix this.  But really; you know these aren't the people they were before they were infected.  Humans truly pushed to their breaking point, one that can't push his guilt aside and one still trying to do something very human, put someone out of their suffering and misery. 

I thought the scenes when Rick first opens the door at the hospital to the outside and when he fires in the tank were fantastical.  Both times it really messed with my senses and really pulls you in to the situation that Rick is facing. 

For the most part I was on the edge of my seat, but not because it was a wild ride but because I wanted to take it all in.  It all felt so very real and I almost felt ill by how empty the world had become.  The books are great as I said, but the tv series so far made it feel so much more real.  It made me feel things that I didn't get in the early issues of the comic.  You might see a panel in the book that shows downtown Atlanta all destroyed, but you can't really feel what that means until you see it live and in color.  Like I first said, haunting.

Back to that final scene before I close it out for the night, holy crap.  For the first 70 minutes it's a human versus zombie one on one and you really don't feel the threat.  Sure you see destroyed buildings everywhere they go, sure you see all the bodies at the hospital.  But you really can't feel the danger and how all these happened.  You know things were real bad when this was all going down, but until that last scene, you've really got no idea what it was like.  We've really got no idea how vicious these things are and what it's like to be truly hunted by The Walking Dead.

That's the thing that truly makes The Walking Dead great, while it takes place during a zombie outbreak, the story isn't really about the zombies at all.  It's about the survivors and their story to find safety and what they'll do to find it.  How they've all changed since the outbreak, what the outbreak has done to them and the tolls it takes on them.  While we did barely touch on the other group of survivors, I didn't like what we saw.  I can't believe they showed us what was going on with his former partner.  They hint at that near the end of the first book, but after what I saw tonight we've got a long way to go to the end of that first book.  I thought it was too early to tell that secret and the way they build on it in the books is much, much better.  You get to see the first glimpses how this has really twisted people up inside.

I must say, the casted director really deserves a bonus, the casting of the few people that we actually did see was bang on. 

Can't wait to see what Darabont has in store for us next week.