The Week In TV: Defending The Walking Dead

From a ratings perspective, The Walking Dead hasn’t lost a shuffling, zombie-like step in its second season. The numbers for its first few episodes were huge, and AMC has already renewed the show for season three. The gore-drenched Dead is officially a pop-culture juggernaut and will likely remain so into the foreseeable future.

Yet despite all of that, the zombie saga continues to be one of TV’s most polarizing series, especially amongst the geek crowd, whom you’d think would be its biggest champion. Go to any notable, geek-oriented web community and find The Walking Dead discussion. You’re almost guaranteed to discover TV and horror fans arguing about the show’s relative merits (or lack thereof), with the naysayers screaming the loudest. Common complaints: The show moves too slow. The characters are one-dimensional and don’t make realistic decisions. The universal zombie rules are ill-defined and sometimes contradictory. There are additional nits and picks galore.

Common complaints: The show moves too slow.

Are the criticisms valid? Some of them, sure. The Walking Dead by no means qualifies as perfect television. The fact that it replaced the far superior Breaking Bad on AMC’s Sunday schedule only helps illuminate that point. Personally, I agree with many of the complaints levied at the show’s characters, which are indeed thinly-drawn and often spouting tone-deaf dialogue. But I also find The Walking Dead to be awfully effective when it comes to creating tension and conveying a crippling sense of dread – two things it’s important for a horror film or series to get right. There’s not much in the way of straight-ahead, balls-out horror on television right now, and, for the most part, The Walking Dead does the genre proud. So then why all the hate?

Well, some of it likely stems from the recent behind-the-scenes kerfuffle that resulted in series creator Frank Darabont being fired from the show. Darabont’s a true creative, full of piss and vinegar, and has never been afraid to fight the man (read: studio execs) if he felt his vision was being impeded in some way. So even though details of Darabont’s dismissal remain vague, it’s no surprise that most fans felt AMC was way out of line when they gave Frank the boot. In fact, many who weren’t thrilled with the new season’s two-hour premiere pointed to rumors that AMC butchered Darabont’s original second-season kickoff, combining small bits of his episode with the episode that was to come after. (And indeed Darabont used a pseudonym for his writing credit on the premiere.)

Horror is a niche genre supported by a passionate fanbase that rarely crosses over into the mainstream.

There could also be a bit of “I don’t like my favorite indie band anymore because they got too popular” syndrome in play here. Horror is a niche genre supported by a passionate fanbase that rarely crosses over into the mainstream. And you would think TV horror is a tougher sell than its big-screen counterpart, as you don’t get the Friday night teenaged movie crowd. Yet The Walking Dead somehow doubles every other show on cable in the advertiser-friendly 18-49 demographic. You can buy T-shirts emblazoned with the series’ logo at Hot Topic. I sometimes wonder if the show would rate better with hardcore horror fans if it aired on Chiller to extremely low ratings.

Past those two theories, I’m not sure what other reasons exist for The Walking Dead to be the focus of so much Internet scorn. There’s the old “the book is better!” argument, but I think it’s universally accepted that Robert Kirkman’s 90-issues-deep comic, on which The Walking Dead is based, suffers from some of the same problems as the show, most notably the slight characterizations. You also can’t really accuse horror fans of being perfectionists, as these are a group of people that will find things to like about every single Friday the 13^th sequel. (Well, maybe not Jason Goes to Hell. That one did totally suck.)

Don’t forget, The Walking Dead is only nine episodes old. Nine!

But the thing is: I’m a horror fan, too. I grew up watching The Evil Dead and The Re-Animator and George Romero’s zombie flicks and loving the hell out of all of them. Yet while others want to bury The Walking Dead for not reaching those heights, I want to celebrate it for trying to make the genre work in a big way on the small screen. Don’t forget, The Walking Dead is only nine episodes old. Nine! Even without Darabont, it’s quite possible those who are now in charge will be able to smooth out the edges by focusing more on what works and fixing some of what doesn’t. Maybe it’s time to stop the endless nitpicking and give the show a chance to prove that it deserves the attention it gets.