And so begins new American series The Walking Dead: the first brave attempt at taking zombies from the big screen to small. I for one am excited by this. You girls can keep your pale and mysterious Edward, with his James Dean hair and shamelessly British lilly-white, bony torso. Hell, you can even keep your unbelievably tiny nosed Jacob (I actually had to check Taylor Lautner's IMDb to find out that werewolf's name, that is how little I care for the Twilight franchise) with his obsessive compulsive t shirt removing and emo-tastic witterings of self pity... because I am a zombie girl.
The first episode gives little explanation to just how the 'walkers' took over, instead we see everything through the eyes of police officer Rick Grimes, the man who shot the girl in the opening sequence. We are back to present day and he and his partner are talking women in the jokey, semi-serious way that men do. Suddenly a car is speeding, flips and a shoot out begins. Rick is shot and ends up in hospital where he slips into a coma. When he awakes he is hungry, in pain and confused when the nurses don't come to his aid. This is because the hospital is now deserted, with violent hints as to how this has happened: blood is on the floor, beds are strewn down corridors and most importantly a surgery room has been padlocked and barricaded; a warning written on the wall telling any survivors not to open the doors.
Once they realise Grimes isn't infected and that his bandage is from a shot and not a bite they invite him to dinner and to stay with them. Grimes is incredibly obtuse, he has already seen 'walkers' in the hospital yet accuses Morgan of killing a man earlier in the day. "That ain't no man." says Duane, who is immediately told to correct his lazy speaking by his father. It may be the end of the world, but that's no reason not to speak proper. As Morgan explains the walkers and the process of becoming a walker to Grimes it is frustrating that Grimes, as a cop, doesn't ask more questions. I guess this is because the writers want us to remain inquisitive about a genre we are already familiar with and keep us on our toes. Duane is looking through a crack in the curtains, only to see his mother outside with the walkers. As he runs from the window, sobbing into a pillow Morgan tells the story of the death of his wife.
The next day a still weak Grimes kills his first walker with a bat as the trio go to his old home. He tells Morgan that his son and wife are still alive, out there somewhere, hopefully at the refugee camp for survivors. The trio go to the police station to get gun supplies before going their separate ways; Morgan and Duane back to the house to practice shooting and Grimes in his police car to find his wife and son.
The talking between the actors at times feels hackneyed and stilted, but it is important to remember that most pilots are weak compared to the rest of a series. Once the characters are more settled in the world created for them the conversations should flow easier. In a new home Morgan practices shooting as Duane stays downstairs reading his comics. Morgan shoots at the walkers, drawing attention to himself in the hope that his wife will appear once again so he can put her out of her misery. She does, and his shaking hands and the pain etched over his face makes us question whether we could do the same. He bottles it and his wife staggers slowly away.
In a small campsite Grimes' voice can be heard over the radio. A small group of survivors are there including Lori (Prison Break's Sarah Wayne Callies), Carl and Grimes' old partner: officer Shane Walsh. The radio connection is weak and Lori wants to warn the person out there of the dangers of the city. Walsh disagrees and Lori goes to her tent to sulk. Walsh follows and the two discuss the issue before kissing passionately. Those dirty dogs!
Good old reliable and faithful Rick Grimes, meanwhile, has ran out of petrol and arrives at an old house in the sticks. The couple who resided there have shot themselves in the head and have left a note to God on their wall asking for forgiveness. The use of effects in the pilot episode so far have been excellent in their gruesomeness. Despondent and alone, Rick sits on the couple's steps and tries to think of what to do next. It is then that he notices the horse in their field.
It is while Grimes is trotting to town on the horse that the iconic moment that made the cover and posters of The Walking Dead is seen. Even Alicia, who is completely indifferent to the zombie genre looked up from her book to the TV and said "Wow." Grimes is on a motorway, in his uniform, riding on a horse; a quintessential hero if ever there was one. Not only that but he is completely alone, with the city's tall buildings ahead of him and a pile up of cars that are now abandoned on the other carriageway. This scene tells us that people had tried to escape in droves and had mainly perished. It also tells us that a man proud enough to wear his uniform and stetson hat when all around him is chaos is a man to trust in an apocalyptic situation such as this. While others ran away from danger, Rick Grimes is going straight towards it; come Hell or high water, he will get back to his wife and son.
In the city Grimes passes a bus and the two walkers on it wake up. I never knew that zombies slept, but in The Walking Dead they do. The two walkers slowly follow and the horse gets nervy. Grimes calms the horse with the famous last words of: "It's only a few. We can handle them." Looking up he sees a helicopter, the first good sign that the refugee camp exists. Grimes tries to follow the helicopter, but turns a corner to find a street full to the brim of walkers. He turns and tries to escape but there are too many and the horse is taken down. Entrails, organs, blood and gore are everywhere but not a single zombie mouth looks bloody. Tsk, tsk. Grimes manages to crawl inside a tank from underneath and takes a breather... not realising an army walker is waking up next to him. A quick snarl in Grimes face and the walker gets a hole in his head and Grimes ends up deafened by the reverberation from the shot. Once his hearing returns he realises a wise cracking city kid has seen what happened to him on the streets and is talking to him on a radio. The episode ends with the walkers devouring the horse and clawing at the entrance of the tank.
I am pleased that The Walking Dead hasn't shied away from blood and gore. It would be disapointing if a TV series about zombies was devoid of these things just to please the censors. I am also impressed by the excellent use of location and the detail in props: cars are burnt out, turned over or abandoned; helicopters and army tanks are strewn around outside hospitals and in the city. We also get to see the comparison between Grimes' once safe and now almost empty hick suburb and the more populated city with it's tall buildings, compressed streets and countless walkers. The characters are still a little one dimensional, including Grimes, our cuckolded hero with a mission to save his wife and son who may not want to be saved... but with so much chaos and separation of characters perhaps their stilted conversations are more to do with the confusion, loss and fear they are feeling. I am not worried by these slight niggles though, on IMDb the series got 9.1 out 10 so there will be obvious improvement as the series goes on and as far as pilot episodes go this left me hungry for more (ho ho ho).
