By: Lili Samios and Dagney Palmer
The Walking Dead, recently declared the most watched basic cable drama series of all time, is a television show on AMC about the zombie apocalypse. It stars Andrew Lincoln, Sarah Wayne Callies, and Jon Bernthal. Based on Robert Kirkman’s comic book series, the show features Rick Grimes, his family, and a group of fellow survivors trying to stay alive while constantly being chased by “walkers,” also known as zombies.
Staying relatively true to the comic books thanks to cooperation between the author, and the show runner, Glen Mazzara, the series begins with Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), a sheriff’s deputy who wakes up in a hospital from a near-fatal gunshot wound and finds himself in the middle of the zombie apocalypse. Sarah Wayne Callies plays his wife, Lori, and Jon Bernthal plays his best friend, Shane, who is also a police officer. After Rick realizes what the world has become, he sets off to find his family and some trace of the world he once knew.
The television show follows the basic plot set up by the comic books, but it doesn’t follow them exactly. The TV show has some characters who aren’t in the comics, such as Daryl Dixon, played by Norman Reedus. The TV show does vary from the basic plot of the comics. For example, some characters who are dead in the show are still alive in the comics, and vice versa. What is great about the show is that even though it is different from the comics, the fans of the comics can still enjoy the show.
The show looks at how a group of people might survive a zombie attack and also how the apocalypse would affect people and their relationships with others. Though it might seem like just a gory zombie show, The Walking Dead is really about how the characters react to the stress and horror, and it analyzes the lengths people will go to survive.
Though the zombies are the catalysts for most of the show’s conflicts, the real antagonists turn out to be the living, as many people turn to lives of crime and “every man for himself” mentalities to keep themselves alive. This show is about tests and challenges and trying to make the best of the very worst situations. The characters each go through their own journeys to find their place in the shattered world, and some don’t make it. What really makes The Walking Dead amazing is how it explores the relationships between characters, and how living in this post-apocalyptic world affects people’s actions.
The first season of The Walking Dead won the Saturn Award for Best Television Presentation, and the show recently won the Emmy award for Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup for a Series, Miniseries, Movie, or a Special. Actors and actresses on the show, including Andrew Lincoln and Sarah Wayne Callies, have received prestigious awards.
It is surprising that a television show about zombies is so critically acclaimed. In the past many zombie movies and shows have been considered incredibly bad, so you don’t really expect a zombie movie to be good.
The show recently finished its second season and will be returning for a third season in the fall of 2012.