5 Reasons The Walking Dead Doesn’t Work As Well As It Could

Since the conclusion of Lost, it seemed like there was a void in popular culture of a TV show for people to rally around, to hold watching parties over, to discuss the next day, to pore over endlessly on the internet. Whether because of its comic book roots or its cable sensibilities regarding graphic violence, The Walking Dead has been the congregating point for perhaps the largest fan base surrounding a television show. And yet while many people enjoy the show to varying degrees, few would argue it is without fault. Some, like myself, despite watching the show week after week, conclude just about every episode with the vague wish that the show actually lived up to the potential dreamed of by its most pious fans and hinted at by its own greatest dramatic moments. I've noticed a surprising number of people, those who insist that The Walking Dead is the best show on TV right now, also cite the first episode of the show as the greatest that's been produced. Is this not a bit of a letdown? That the show may have peaked in its first episode and has never reached the heights of that initial premiere? I tend to agree with those that say the series opener, in fact the first few silent moments of the show's entrance into the cable television pantheon, may have been its best. As fantastic as it can be at times, most people seem to agree that for all its awesomeness there's still a lot of unfortunate fluff viewers have to endure to get to the good parts, as it were. I think we are right to expect more from a show that people, including, presumably, its developers, want to be TV's best. To be among the Breaking Bad, Mad Men, The Wire echelon, The Walking Dead simply needs to be better. And it could be. I can't say precisely what it should do, but I've identified a few areas that just seem really weak. Here are 5 things that prohibit The Walking Dead from being one of the best shows on television. Continue reading on the next page... 1) Characters like Lori, Carl, and Andrea There are some excellent characters on The Walking Dead. Rick, obviously, is one of the strongest. They've focused on him quite a lot both in conception and in screen time. Glenn has stepped up to become pretty interesting and dynamic too and Daryl might be the most intriguing and rich characters the show has been able to manage. But then there are the show's much-maligned characters, most notably Lori. Goddamned Lori. In a period where there's been a wave of terrific females on TV like Carrie Mathison, Amy Jellicoe, Leslie Knope, women who aren't overwhelmingly likable but are still compelling and redeemable, this show has really fallen behind the times. Lori is presented as a one-dimensional nag. Whether this is the fault of the show's creators or whether their abilities are shackled by the performance of Sarah Wayne Callies I can't say. The same applies to Andrea, who was a character with potential but was forced into a fulfilling a role that has not worked. Then there's Carl. Kids are tricky because it often comes down to the quality of the direction, but Carl's growing role as a capable defender of the camp has felt entirely false. These are only three misfires, among prominent leads. The handling of supporting characters is another story. Continue reading on the next page... 2) Supporting characters are hit and miss Again, there are examples of strong supporting characters here, some of which began in seeming supporting roles and became featured players. Daryl is the best example of this. This could have been a throwaway character and they decided, rightly, to make him into probably the most complicated and unpredictable member of the story. Furthermore, Carol seems to become more real in the third season and Herschel has evolved into a kind of badass Santa in his own way. There are other supporting and guest roles that the show squandered. The one that made the greatest impression on me was Dave, played by Michael Raymond-James who is probably best known for playing Rene on True Blood. His confrontation with Rick and company in the bar in season 2 was one of the best scenes the show has produced, with the character of Dave in particular serving as this enigmatic stranger who engaged Rick in this standoff of wits and weaponry. He didn't make it past the episode, unfortunately. Continue reading on the next page... 3) Poor acting and dialogue too often takes precedent over well crafted action One of the reasons people loved the pilot episode of The Walking Dead, I think, was because so much of it consisted of just really well-crafted, and most importantly, silent, action sequences. And these weren't even huge bang-boom-pow action set pieces, but merely Rick trying to figure out this new world he had woken up to. Naturally there was no room for dialogue. Similarly, any time, most often in the cold open scenes, when there is muted dialogue in the show, it soars. The directors for most of these episodes have a real knack for constructing compelling scenes where we are completely captivated watching the images unfold before us. And then usually the middle 30 minutes of each episode consists of characters talking to each other. This is where the show tends to lose people. There is the occasional strong exchange between Carol and Daryl, for example, where we learn something interesting or hear people wax poetic or philosophical about their plight and whatnot. Too often we're hearing Andrea giving a speech (why does anyone listen to her? I don't even like listening to her on my TV) or Dale nagging everyone to do something or other. The acting leans toward the melodramatic, which is incredibly off-putting in a setting otherwise hyper-realistic. When the zombie apocalypse is presented with such realism, it's jarring and irritating to see people acting like they're in a bad Lifetime movie. Continue reading on the next page... 4) Good ideas, poor execution The thing the show executes the best is without a doubt the executions. I don't think there's another television show in history that has depicted gruesome violence this beautifully and disturbingly. It also handles, as mentioned earlier, some tense scenes and establishing a sense of unknown terror rather well. When it comes to expressing the more philosophical and moral beats in the show effectively, though, it's not nearly as strong. I get the sense that the conceptualizing of these conundrums, most famously the scene in which the group debates whether to execute one of their live prisoners, is detailed and smart, but that doesn't come out in the actual, realized version of the scene once it's put on the screen. I'm not sure why this is. But the result is, for me and people like me, a scene with some big ideas and a legitimate moral dilemma feeling entirely unnatural and more like a didactic morality play being too obviously inserted into this life and death environment. So people will praise the scene's writing, but I would maintain that if it doesn't fit as seamlessly into the action as it ought to, the direction has failed somewhere. Continue reading on the next page... 5) Its departures from the comic are weaker I haven't read any of the Walking Dead comics. Maybe I'd be over the moon for the show if I had. I get the sense, however, that the show isn't as good as the comic, so perhaps if I was familiar with it I'd be even more pissed at the show for not being as good as it could be. Based on my (very) superficial understanding of the comic, the characters are more fully formed, less watered down, and more believable. Andrea actually makes sense as a person, there aren't black characters named "T-Dog" where the T could stand for "token," and the Governor is actually menacing instead of cartoony (ironically enough). But I can't speak to this directly. I may romanticize the quality of the comic because it's unknown territory to me. From what I hear though, my gripes with the show, characters like Lori and Carl, the stiff dialogue, all the moments that depart from the wordless actions of the characters, these things that don't work super well on screen, they all work terrifically well on the page. If this is indeed true, then this is a failure in adaptation. A show like Game of Thrones is known for its departures from its source material, but these liberties are taken to enrich the story visually. I'm not sure The Walking Dead does that. Maybe it would be better served if it was more faithful to the original comics. But maybe not. It is what it is. What do you think? Are there issues in The Walking Dead that bother you? Do you think it's perfectly fine the way it is? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.