Ugh, I didn’t expect 2 hours. That was a long premiere. But I was pleased.
The Walking Dead is a zombie TV series on AMC based on a comic book of the same name. Like I needed to tell you all that. Production values for this show are excellent and exceed even Romero-movie special effects. A brief synopsis and I will try to limit the spoilers in this review: Our protagonist, Deputy Hero, wakes up in his small town Georgia hospital to find he’d been in a coma for a bit, and the world had a little Level 4 zombie outbreak while he slept. A whole 28 Days Later thing. Hey, you know something? 28 Days Later might have stolen the coma motif FROM this series, and not the other way round.
Some other observations...
Oh look, a love triangle. Well I guess you gotta have TV drama and dramatic irony in a TV show. I hate it when emotions and personal dynamics get in the way of zombie carnage. Ah well.
They did a good job showing how loud shooting a Colt Python inside a tank can/might be. Ow! My freakin ears! And it's not like it's a good idea to bounce a bullet around on the inside of a bullet proof chamber. He's lucky ONLY his ears rang.
I had one problem with my suspension of disbelief. The aforementioned tank that Deputy Hero seeks sanctuary in, he accesses the interior though a hole in the underside. Thing is… I have it on good authorioty that there is no hatch in the bottom of an M1 Abrams tank… Sorta ruined the whole thing for me.
But the Ma Deuce DOES have ammo. THAT could be fun.
There are many folks in refugee situations running from the undead. They are staying in nylon camping tents. "Uh-oh Carl! There is a zombie in camp outside our tent!" "Don't worry Martha, I'll take care of this." zzzzzzzzzzzip. "There. All closed up. Now we are perfectly safe." Yeah, that could be bad.
And we get to see the futility of relying on a 12 gauge for our anti-zombie weapon. See what happens when you rely on shotguns? Shotguns are the WORST anti-zombie gun. Deputy Hero had half a dozen or so, presumably loaded, carrying them around in a duffel. Probably because he figured out it takes too long to reload and he might run into a group of Walkers. At least he thought THAT far ahead. Turns out all those loaded shotties are bulky and the Deputy-Hero lost them in a spill fleeing a few hundred zeds. I guess he didn't expect THAT many in a group, either. A horde is a HORDE. Once you start taking off your shoes and socks to count the zombies nearby that shotgun is less useful. And there are ALWAYS more zombies. He’d have been better off with a Ruger Mini-14 and 3 extra magazines than all those shotguns. And a Mini-14 and a couple dozen magazines is still lighter in weight than 6 shotguns AND able to handle a couple hundred of the undead, maybe. Well, give Deputy-Hero a break. He still hadn't wrapped his head around this whole zombie thing just yet. It's hard getting your feet under you after a discombobulating coma combined with a Level 4.
Ooo, almost forgot. There was an instruction at the beginning, by Deputy-Hero. He had his revolver (Olde Skool!) and him and other law enformcement are getting ready to shoot it out with actual crminals and such. The instruction was, "be sure you have a round in the chamber and the safety is off!" But all the other cops have Glocks, with no safeties.
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Oh and i just heard about this mini-series. The Dead Set. It's about what happens to a Big Brother cast and crew when a Level 4 happens and they hunker in place. It's on IFC and I'm gonna have to find a copy.
Liked the show, problems with the Gunnie aspect:
ReplyDeleteA) "Good buddy" Cop Partner steals his wife and kid, but doesn't hit the Police Station Armory?
B) Cop continues to use a Six Shot 2.5# Revolver when there are 1.3# Glocks on the force with 3x the capacity?
C) They didn't head back to the Hospital and raid the Army Encampment for weapons? Betcha he leaves the Beretta behind in the Tank.
Yeah, Olde Skool don't cut it during a Level 4. Shotguns should only be used for narrow corridors, and then only for Choke points to buy time.
As for the Dead Set: started to watch it, then I realized that the Zombies would be taking out people who WANTED to be on Big Brother. Then I realized that if their was any group of people who would be perfect to become Zombie Chow...
It managed to follow a lot of what was in the comic, while adding a lot of new stuff. I recommend getting the Trade Paperbacks and doing a compare/contrast with them.
ReplyDeleteYou missed the point.
ReplyDeleteThe only guns LEFT in the armory were shotguns, revolvers, and bolt actions.
Others raided the armory for all the high capacity firearms.
Good point Anon. At this point in the SHTF, your best bet for firearms is anyplace BUT an armory.
ReplyDeleteLike around overrun military checkpoints.
ReplyDeletehaven't seen it yet..on the DVR for tonight though what I've read here isn't enough to spoil it..
ReplyDeleteyou are correct, the M1 does NOT have an escape hatch in the floor. The incorporation would have weakened the structural integrity of the armor and studies have shown that in past combat when they were available they were rarely used..
aside from the drawbacks against shotty's against a level 4 outbreak as mentioned here, any serious survival minded person would be remiss without including at least one in their personal armory at home or BOL. There ability to chamber multiple types of projectiles and function in many roles makes them ideal for foraging and also self defense...
and a Good M1A wouldn't hurt either!!
Walking Dead debuts with huge ratings for AMC!
ReplyDeletehttp://blog.newsarama.com/2010/11/01/walking-dead-debuts-with-huge-ratings-for-amc/
The acting quality surprised me.
ReplyDeleteIn the scene where that guy was trying to shoot his wife through scope and the deputy went and found to torso to bring it some mercy...
It could be my new favorite show.