MyRating: YYYYY + A CROWN
Creator: Frank Darabont
Broadcast Channel: AMC
Season 1 Premiered: October 31, 2010
Episode 1: Days Gone Bye (Director: Frank Darabont)
Episode 2: Guts (Director: Michelle Maxwell MacLaren)
Episode 3: Tell It to the Frogs (Director: Gwyneth Horder-Payton)
Episode 4: Vatos (Director: Johan Renck)
Episode 5: Wildfire (Director: Ernest R. Dickerson)
Episode 6: TS-19 (Director: Guy Ferland)
- Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes
- Jon Bernthal as Shane Walsh- Sarah Wayne Callies as Lori Grimes
- Laurie Holden as Andrea
- Jeffrey DeMunn as Dale Horwath
- Steven Yuen as Glenn
- Chandler Riggs as Carl Grimes
- Steven Yuen as Glenn
- Chandler Riggs as Carl Grimes
- Emma Bell as Amy
- Norman Reedus as Daryl Dixon
- IronE Singleton as T-Dog
- Juan Gabriel Pareja as Morales
- Michael Rooker as Merle Dixon
- Jeryl Prescott as Jacqui
- Andrew Rothernberg as Jim
- Adam Minarovich as Ed Peletier
- Melissa Suzanne McBride as Carol Peletier
- Melissa Suzanne McBride as Carol Peletier
The Walking Dead is a post-apocalyptic zombies television series, adapted from an American comic book series by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard, about a small group of survivors traveling across the United States, trying to survive the outbreak. The series was first published in 2003 by Image Comics and it won the 2010 Eisner Award for Best Continuing Series at San Diego Comic-Con International.
Deputy Sheriff Rick Grimes awakens from a coma in a hospital alone, to finds out a terrifying scene with dead bodies everywhere. Outside the hospital, the scenes are not getting any better, an abandoned city with more dead people. He returns home and finds it empty, but something makes him belief that his wife and son are still alive. And he has to find them. Rick learns that the world has somehow been overrun with zombies, hunger for human flesh. The disease spreads by infection due to bites or scratches from the zombies or high fever. It then kills the people and turns them into the walking dead.
When Rick hears that there is a refugee center in the city of Atlanta, he decides to go there with a hope to find his wife and son. But what he finds is a town full with the undead. There, he meets with a band of scavengers who are trapped inside the city, trying to find a way out and return to their group of survivors who makes a camp outside the city. Together with this group of people, Rick has to work together hand in hand escaping and fighting the zombies. But their main hope is to find a safer place until the government or the military, if there is any left, finds a way to cure the disease. But before that happens, their days are counted, because it's just a matter of time before one by one of them will become one of the undead.
For me, this series is like a dream comes true. As a big fan of zombie movie genre, I always wish that there is a zombie TV series out there, good enough to be cherished longer, rather than a short 1.5-2 hour big screen movie. And this series gave more than what I've expected. Actually, I was blown away. This is an amazing show that will make you addicted and can't stop watching. The best zombie movie I have ever seen. It was so powerful that left a deep feeling and impression in my heart after watching it, like it was so real and hanging in my mind.
What makes this series great is the script, which was brilliantly written. I really have to bow down my head for what they have done. A superb storytelling. The drama was so enticing and gripping, with clever plots, well written dialogues, and great characters. It did like LOST (the TV series) in the drama side and character development, minus the flashbacks, but add the zombies. The story was also spiced with love triangle and adrenaline-rush actions with lots of furious zombies. Despite a TV movie, the special effects were great. They are just like the zombies that we used to see in the big screen. They are real, and they are terrifying. The directions (6 different directors in 6 episodes) were top-notch, seamless within the episodes with great production values. And the settings and cinematography were wonderful, with a 'bleak and abandoned' world, that will lead your mood to the way the film wants to. 
Another element that makes this series amusing to watch were the unique and interesting characters, and how the story gets messy with them and their relationships. Good character developments that make us want to care about them and their fates. We don't want them to die, but some will die. Above all, the movie was very well and convincingly acted, that makes it a perfect score. A great cast to choose at the first place, that made me already falling in love with many of the characters.
Rick Grimes is a typical leader, brave and resolute, with high ethical values within him, who will do anything to protect his family and his group of people. Shane Walsh, who I think is the most interesting character here, has his moral struggling inside. A complex character who has to go through a circumstance that slowly changes him inside as human, and defines a strong motive that drives all his acts. His deep character development shows us to what he will become. And I think the flashback scene in the last episode, that showed what Shane actually did back at the hospital when the outbreak began, was a smart and unexpected one, at the same time explaining the hidden reality, and it was relieving. While Lori Grimes is an attractive and beautiful woman, whose love, men will fight for, but whose heart is weak of being alone. Her complicated relationships with Rick and Shane shaped an interesting conflict in this series. Andrea is a tough and independent woman, with a melancholic heart inside. When she is forced to end the suffering of one lovely character, it just shows us how strong she is, but at the same time heartbreaking. Glenn is another interesting character as a Korean guy with high agility and surviving skills, a guy that you can always depend on. The appearance of an Asian actor will surely attract more of the Asian markets. Daryl Dixon is an example of a good antagonist, or a bad protagonist. We just don't really know what he will become. A potential enemy? Or a friend? And his high temper and trouble maker nature are the source of many conflicts in the group, that are needed to mess-up the story. But I kind of like his character. And last but not least, Merle Dixon, a total bad-ass who will make your days like hell, and make the hell hotter. His personal struggling to make peace with God when he is being handcuffed, with the fear of zombies approaching, is one terrifying, brilliant and heart-wrenching scene. A great villain.
This is an awesome series, beyond what I can think of as a zombie TV series. Gladly they made it. They have not only made it, but they also have created a masterpiece for the zombie genre. Can't wait for Season 2, which I believe things will get even messier and zombier. (MJ)
