The Walking Dead Season 2 (2011)

 

The world we know is gone, but keeping our humanity? That's a choice.

Following the events of season 1, the band of survivors leave Atlanta and start to make their way to Fort Benning, but are derailed by zombie hordes. What follows is a season full of missing persons, morality decisions and anti-hero antagonism.

After the departure of showrunner Frank Darabont audiences are treated to an extended 13 episode run despite a reduced budget which can be a bit noticeable for those who pay attention with less dynamic camera angles, less shooting locations and less of the zombies. While the most is made of the first two, less of one of the main draws is quite jarring. Whether it makes the show less of itself or makes their sparse appearances more memorable is up to the viewer. There is also the issue of some characters fading into the background, mostly T-Dog who is given precisely zero interesting arcs while seemingly every other character experiences some sort of change or growth. The conflict between Rick's morality and Shane's cold survivor logic is the main drama replacement for the zombies. Neither is really wrong and the back and forth is very interesting, sometimes irritating, but wholly great. The extended character drama is a nice trade off for the reduced budget limitations which are minor irritations if the viewer is inclined to let them go.

Episodes to See:
Ep. 11. Dale-centric episode that is at the heart of the humanity and morality of the show.
Ep. 13. Action packed finale with many things coming to light and plenty of teasers for next season and fanwank.

Buyer's Guide:
Available in DVD and Blu-Ray box sets, both regular and limited editions. Also on iTunes, Netflix and Amazon.

3½ Carl is never in the fucking house out of 5

The Walking Dead Season 1 (2010)

The fever burns you out, but then after awhile...You come back.

The Walking Dead is a Frank Darabont produced AMC show that follows Officer Rick Grimes as he wakes up in the hospital after a gunshot induced coma to find the whole world has gone to shit in a zombie apocalypse, so he sets out to find the whereabouts of his wife and son. On the way he must learn to survive in this new world of infected corpses called "Walkers" while scrounging for food, ammunition and dealing with survivors who may or may not have held onto their sense of morality and humanity let alone their sanity.

This first season is some high quality stuff with decent effects, sweeping dynamic camera shots and some good action. Don't know whether it was the cost of those or just TV politics that made it so we only got 6 episodes, but they are great episodes. The downfall being it is hard to get invested in characters in such a short time so a lot of drama often won't carry any weight especially if it involves just ancillary characters. Not to say there isn't any good drama. The horror setting is really just a backdrop for some interesting character studies in how human morality holds up in a world with almost no consequences. It's just limited given the truncated season. And there is cool zombie-killin' action if that's what you came for.

Buyer's Guide:
Widely available on DVD and Blu-Ray in both regular and special editions. The European release is censored for excessive gore, so if that bothers any purists find another source for viewing.

4 Take a shot every-time Daryl does what any logical person would do out of 5