AMC's The Walking Dead Season 1 Discussion & Spoilers

Anyone see the broadcast quality?

I just got home a few minutes ago and flipped on the repeat showing of it and it looked terrible. I thought I was watching a very low res show that was blown up to letter box size.

I hope it's just a fluke on this rebroadcast......

 

Well, I watched it on AMC HD, and it looked alright, but AMC HD is generally pretty terrible, compared to other HD channels... which are generally pretty terrible compared to, say, bluray. I wasn't expecting it to blow me away, since I've never been impressed with AMC HD.

 

I enjoyed it a lot, but yeah, the quality was weird. There was a weird distortion at the very top of my screen, and the picture wasn't as clear as I expect current TV to be. It honestly looked like I was watching a VHS tape.

 

Broadcast looked fine to me. This premier had some really good elements to it like that hospital scene and how he was in and out of consciousness when his partner came with the flowers. I wonder how much time had transpired.

 

That's it!

It looked like a crappy old VCR tape. One that you've had forever and played a million times so it starts looking ragged on screen.

I wasn't expecting HD but at least it could look as normal as the rest of AMC normally does.

 

I watched it and enjoyed the hell out of it. Picture was perfectly clear here. As to the "waking in the hospital/28 days later connection" I understand BOTH are tributes to the opening of "The Day of the Triffids". "The Walking Dead" is NOT ripping off "28 Days Later".

I enjoyed this episode a lot. The emotional panorama ran the spectrum, up to and including even having a moment to feel pity for one of the zombies. I think there's great promise here. My sole complaint was about the clocks in the hospital and it is nit-picking of the highest order. MOST wall clocks are battery operated these days and therefore it is extremely unlikely that more than one clock will stop at the same time. If you want to assume the clocks are electric, well, the LIGHTS were on in a lot of places so, unless there's a particular "wall-clock" breaker somewhere in the engineering room, SOME of the clocks should have continued ticking.

Picky, picky, picky, I know but sometimes lil'shit like that devils me.

 

I enjoyed this quite a bit. And yeah, you do feel for those zombies. They're portrayed like people in a lot of pain, especially that one that was crawling in the park. The part near the end where whatshisface was under the tank surrounded by zombies had me on the edge of my seat. I was wondering how he'd get out of that scrape. I'm looking forward to more. Whatshisface has to get back to his son and wife who's now taken up with his former partner and there seems to be a community out there under military protection. I didn't catch where it was. Nevada? I wonder if they'll get there only to find out that it's been taken by the disease. I don't know if we'll ever find out what exactly happened, but somehow it doesn't matter. It looks like it'll be a good ride.

I had the same thought during the show. What if the cylons were zombies?

Yeah, how much time did pass? Also, how did whatshisface survive in the hospital without nourishment and without being found by the zombies?

 

Well, he was clearly weak and dehydrated, which is why we see him stumble to the sink to get some water. Not sure how long he was actually unconscious. Judging from the flowers, maybe a couple weeks.

 

I liked it. Yes, that will do very nicely. Will be tuning in next week. Instead of Mad Men from the 60s, I'll take Georgian zombies from the 2010s for the win.

So, did the kiss between the partner and the wife just happen because of the stress of the situation and them thinking he was dead--or were they carrying on before? I'd like to think not. The partner could have lost his wife to the virus (they weren't getting along, obviously, if he was going batshit over lights) and he seems to care for his friend. But his lines at the beginning (they're repeating it again believe it or not) about it "just being a phase" could be manifesting guilt over sleeping with his friend's wife.

The broadcast quality was just fine here in Oklahoma City. I didn't know the actor who played the sheriff was English. He looks like Owen Wilson. What's his character's name? Will? How odd that I can't recall what it is. Did anyone ever actually say his first name?

 

Some of the dialogue suggested about a month had passed since the infection first popped up. I'm going to ignore how the main character was able to even walk after not being fed or taken care of because I generally enjoyed the rest of it, stupid "WTF are you doing going into an urban center after a zombie apocalypse?!?!?!" moments aside.

I hope Lennie James shows up again--he was great in tonight's episode.

 

I didn't catch his name either. The IMDb says it's Rick Grimes and I thought he looked like Tony Goldwyn.

 

28 days to be precise.

Maybe the hospital lasted a while before succumbing so he was only there for a while?

 

Rick! That's it! Thanks. I caught on the midnight broadcast that the partner's name is Shane.

I also think the hospital lasted a little while longer. He couldn't have possibly lasted a month without nutrition. I like that the music seems minimalist for the most part.

 

I loved the pilot. Looking forward to the rest of the season.

I'm a fan of zombie movies. My favorites from recently have been 28 Days Later, Dawn of the Dead (remake), and Zombie Land. The biggest flaw with zombie movies is that you barely get to know the characters before the movie ends. But a show doesn't have this problem. Hopefully we get to learn more about them as the rest of the season goes on. The zombies on this show seem pretty smart, like with the girl zombie playing with the toy. It was great seeing Dr Sarah from Prison Break again!

 

How the hell did Syfy not produce this? Seems like it would've fit in well with their usual weekend programming.

 

I was trying to figure out where I knew the lead actor from:

 

I've read a little of the comic and thought it was alright but not enough to get the rest of it. The TV show I'm afraid too slow and boring. They decompressed two very short issues of a comic book into a 90 minute movie?! At this rate the current 78 issues should last them 100 episodes! A comic book should only equal about 15 minutes of screen time, particularly a Kirkman one.

 

I liked this ok in terms of the "feel" of the show. Also it was great for us Galactica fans to hear new Bear McCreary stuff. I do have some nitpicks, and really they are things that seem to only bother me, but they always bring me right out of the show and destroy my suspension of disbelief.

Right off the bat the main charactor tells one of his men to make sure there is a round in the chamber, and he has the safety off. The guy is using a GLOCK, there is no manual safety switch! That control he manipulated and click we all heard was the slide release. Also, there were alot of UH-1s in Army colors lying around. Even the National Guard doesn't use the old huey anymore, they got retired over a year ago. The last thing was the "escape hatch" found under the tank that our hero used to get away from the zombies at the end. I am not positive, but I am pretty sure that the M-1 doesn't have an escape hatch on the bottom (any tamkers out there want to help out an ol' 11B on this one?)

Ok yes, I realize those are very nitpicky points and seem very trivial. But they are so easy to resolve, it just bothers me when writers, directors and such don't even bother to know what they are talking about. Sorry about all that, end of rant. I did enjoy the show and will be tuning I next week.

 

I thought the pacing of the show was a on the slow side, but other than that I thought it was good.

Lennie James pulled of a good southern accent - but they guy who played Shane not so much.

I liked seeing Lennie James not come in and pull a Robert Hawkins revisited. He was awesome. Hope we see him again.

 

Maybe he was hooked up to a giant IV that lasted the entire month.