Review: The Walking Dead: "Days Gone By"

I was a fan of The Walking Dead as a comic. As soon as I heard a series featuring the zombie apocalypse was coming to television, I immediately sought out the source material and I devoured it like a ghoul on a horse. It's simply the best comic I've ever read, and deals with more emotional complexity than any film or television show I can recall. So, my hope that the show would be good - not great, but at least good - seemed justifiable. Then, Frank Darabont took the reins. I love his work, too. This seemed too good to be true. And then there were the clips from the show, the anticipation. And, last night, finally, I hit the lights, settled onto the couch and crossed my fingers.

Why was I worried? From the opening moment with our hero, Rick (Andrew Lincoln), stumbling across a little girl that just maybe survived the end of the world, and the inevitable realization that she's just another threat, I was hooked.

If you haven't seen it, yet, The Walking Dead begins with Rick waking, alone, in a hospital where he has been in a coma brought on by a gunshot wound. Like Day of the Triffids and 28 Days Later..., writer-director Frank Darabont uses this conceit to create some genuine moments of tension, especially in a tense stairwell scene. We learn, along with Rick, that the world has gone to hell in a handbasket, and the dead have risen to consume the living.

Being a premiere, one would expect a certain amount of set-up, and there is exposition to be given, but the talents of Darabont in weaving in important pieces of information without putting a neon sign over the heads of the characters makes even these necessary plot points something to behold. A moment when Rick wakes from his coma is sublime in its reveal of the passage of time, and Darabont populates the entire episode with moments of understatement, as when Rick mutters, "Need a moment" after killing his first zombie. The line is casual, the look on Rick's face, the weight of this new world settling onto his shoulders, is damn near heartbreaking.

Darabont is a master of finding the emotional beats in the story, and The Walking Dead is no different. But don't believe for a moment that the scares have been ignored. Or that the gore is downplayed. This is a zombie story, without question, which means you can expect head shots galore. The zombie effects by Greg Nicotero, who has taken the mantle of special effects guru from the generation before him (Rob Bottin, Tom Savini, etc.), are outstanding, despite some noticeably CGI blood effects.

It's easy to give in to hyperbole, and I will try to avoid it here. But this is an exception show, and one that horror fans are sure to embrace. The violence may turn off more mainstream viewers, but I certainly hope not. I'm all in on this show, now. I want to follow Rick and the band of survivors awaiting him outside Atlanta until the bitter end, and I hope that end is a very long way off. The writing here is crisp, the story human and emotional, and the scares effective. It's too early to rank it as one of the great horror series, but it's laying the groundwork for such a distinction. This is brave and bold stuff for commercial television. With only a six-episode run this season, my biggest letdown with this show, much like the comic it's based on, is that I want more. Now, I just have to find something to occupy myself until next Sunday night...