Walking Dead, future of scripted television?

I am not sure what to make of this tv show on AMC. It is getting up to 6 million viewers which vies with many of the ongoing scripted TV shows on network television.

Sometimes it seems more emotional than most tv shows, other times it is very slow moving and ponderous. I am curious how they are going to resolve the show, since it seems kind of silly to have years of zombies.

I have managed to see all six episodes, so it keeps me coming back.

I can see how the TV market is going to keep breaking up into smaller and smaller pieces. It seems like every cable station wants to get a hit series.

It's odd seeing a guy who spent years playing a wussie junior lawyer in the UK as the hero. No more so than a Oxbridge Comedian play a grouchy doctor, I guess.

The Walking Dead comics aim is NOT to resolve. The whole concept is to examine what would happen in a world where there are zombies and a few survivors... what happens at the end of 28 days later/dawn of the dead/etc.... if zombies walk the earth, what is life actually like?

How that works long term on TV, I don't know. I do know the books are unrelenting.

Quote: pacomartin

I am curious how they are going to resolve the show, since it seems kind of silly to have years of zombies.

They are like bedbugs then, only a bit worse?

the comics have been going for six years and the show is following relatively closely so there is plenty more to go.

All this fascination with undead characters like zombies and vampires in the last few years is a mystery to me. Its all soooo boring.

Quote: darkoz

the comics have been going for six years and the show is following relatively closely so there is plenty more to go.

Maybe this question sounds stupid, but in the finale they depicted the zombies as having something like a virus that reactivates the base part of the nervous system allowing for the most brutish animal behavior. They seem incapable of any kind of self defensive action. If there is enough live people to keep making zombies, then there should be enough live people to wipe out the zombies, as even the most incapable live person seems to be good to kill dozens of zombies.

At some point wouldn't the flesh and muscles decay to the point where there is nothing left to animate? How could they function for six years? Are they making new zombies?


They managed to make I am Legend into a movie three times, with Vincent Price, Charlton Heston, and Will Smith.

"How could they function for six years? Are they making new zombies?"

the comic has been serialized over the past 6-7 years and is up to issue 79(monthly).

However the story is not running real time. They are currently just reaching one year into the zombie apocalypse within the story. There are pockets of survivors being located occasionally but mostly they are separated by fear, lack of supplies, etc. No concerted effort to eradicate the zombies is possible - yet.

Quote: pacomartin

I can see how the TV market is going to keep breaking up into smaller and smaller pieces. It seems like every cable station wants to get a hit series.

The networkd gave up tryint to entertain in favor of trying to "shock" viewers years ago. I have left the networks pretty much totally because the few times I tune in is some gay couple; sexual inuendo only a 13 year old would find funny; a "chickified" reality show like "American Idol" which I can't stand; or some other nonsense. OTOH, "The Shield" was full of complex charachters; "The Sopranos" and "Oz" were very well done. The list goes on. But think about it--a cable network has just a few shows for now so they have to do a good job on them.

I see the decline of network TV almost exactly as the decline of the Detroit Automakers. Early on cable was no threat with professional wrestling one of its biggest draws. But slowly it got better and slowly people found 1-2 shows on 1-2 channels 1-2 hours per week they preferred watching. The big 3 (or 4) networks ignored it for years since they couldn't make a direct competitor without losing 90% or more of their audience. Now they have a little over 50% of the audience when in the 1970s it was over 90%.

Now it is too late. I watch "Chopped" some nights someone else watches ESPN and someone else watches "Deadliest Catch." None really even know what is on the networks.