Is anyone planning to watch the Season Two premiere of The Walking Dead? I’m not, on “life’s too short” grounds. That first season was pretty bad, and there are many, many better and/or more enjoyable shows I can be watching. I’m just curious what y’all have decided. Let me know in the comments if you like.
Tags: horror, The Walking Dead, TV
I’ll watch it at some point. In my opinion the first season was more than just pretty bad. It was just about the worst. The complete pits. Very, very bad and dumb and bad.
Now, I don’t watch the REAL worst stuff, because I’ve got taste and style. Like a lot of us, I do watch very bad stuff in the name of genre, just like how I watch bad bicycle racing, even if I am bored with it and maybe have better things to do. The Walking Dead is just such a good comic, and the idea of an open ended, serialized zombie show is still such a good one. Fans are made of hope and indignation, (and entitlement, I know) and I guess I need to admit that I’ll give the show another shot.
I was gonna write that Kirkman really is a good writer. Invincible has really stepped up and I like his big two stuff pretty well most of the time. I almost wrote that with his skill and, i dunno, integrity to good entertainment? that his involvement must mean that the show can get better. Then I remembered money exists and his endorsement of the last season and this one must have a bearing on his teevee paycheck. and then I thought about the Infinite and Liefeld and then I threw up a little and now I am back to being convinced that, as you said, “life is too short.”
I like The Walking Dead and Invincible a lot; the rest of his stuff I’ve read I could take or leave, with the Marvel stuff leaning toward “leave.” BRIT is pretty good too — kind of an Invincible trial run. I haven’t read much of his late-period stuff where he’s sort of playing the Paul role to the original Image Apostles.
What makes TWD and INV so good is that they’re genuinely unpredictable. Kirkman can kill characters and turn the status quo on its ear, and does. There are under half a dozen ongoing continuity-based series you could say that about — basically those two, Hellboy/BPRD, and Love and Rockets. Grant Morrison’s Batman at its best had that feeling, too, even though obviously some of the feeling that anything goes was illusory, as it always is in corporate comics. (I’m actually hoping that the New 52 continuity reboot remains separate from Batman Incorporated and Batman: Leviathan, and he can wrap the thing up the way he wanted to, Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow-style.)
“There are under half a dozen ongoing continuity-based series you could say that about ” —
This is also one of the key strengths of Larsen’s Savage Dragon (to which Invincible seems heavily indebted).
I no longer have cable at all. I’d probably bother to watch this if I did–which makes me glad I don’t. Not sure I get your glee about the problems, though. I know “Team Comics!” is a joke, but even so, I hate to see “Team Comics” (and Team Zombie, and for that matter Team Genre) take a hit like this. And it makes me sad that the strength of Kirkman’s comic isn’t coming through here. He deserves better. We all do. If nothing else, THINK ABOUT THE CHILDREN–there are kids too young to watch this, sneaking views of it however kids do that these days, and it really should be worth their effort, as this is probably a formative moment in the horror fandom of lots and lots of youngsters.
Who’s gleeful? Glee doesn’t enter into it. It’s just a bad show and I don’t mind saying so. Beyond that, though, EEEEEEK! at the notion that I oughta pull for it on behalf of Team Whatever. I’m on Team Good TV! And if I worried about kids getting exposed to stupid shit that becomes formative for them, I’d have killed myself long ago, sad to say. (I think Harry Potter’s pretty dopey, for example.)
Well, you do say here, “No, seriously, it’s uncool how much I’m enjoying The Walking Dead‘s woes.” So, glee? As for the “Team” stuff, I meant that half in jest, but I think I probably do form more “partisan” attachments when it comes to art/entertainment than you do–which I don’t think is good or bad, just one difference in the way we relate to this stuff.
Oh yeah! I was confused because I thought you meant I was glad it’s bad, which I’m not. But sure, I got a kick out of all the behind-the-scenes turmoil — it felt like cosmic vengeance for making me watch the dopey show. Note that I’m not proud of this.
And you’re right, I’m very much “what you mean ‘we,’ white man?” when it comes to allegiances I’m “supposed” to have because I like this or that.
I’m going to give it a shot, because while I wasn’t all that impressed with the first season, I think I liked it a little more than the general consensus here, and the high points (large chunks of the pilot, that scene with the sisters, that other scene with the guy–you know what I’m talking about) were high enough that I’m interested in seeing where it goes. I’ve done way worse things with my time. I’m pretty sure there was an hour and a half or so just today that would have been better spent watching The Walking Dead.
Also, for what it’s worth, for all its faults I enjoyed the first season way, way, way more than I enjoyed what I’ve read of the comic (the first two trades). I think on the show at least one character had at least one thought that went unsaid, which certainly wasn’t the case with the comic.
You’re right, the pilot was good until the moment that Wang Chung started playing, which was our first sign that something was horribly wrong. It was all downhill from there, with a couple of exceptions, like the sisters moment you mentioned. That was pretty exquisite. But then someone will remind me of the cholos with the hearts of gold and I’ll want to throw my TV out the window again.
“I think on the show at least one character had at least one thought that went unsaid, which certainly wasn’t the case with the comic.”
Hahahaha, yes, that is Kirkman’s main fault as a writer, the one that keeps him from being truly great. Everyone either says exactly how they feel, or just says stuff like “I’m fine” when we’re meant to find it obvious that they’re not. There’s no nuance. If you can get past that, though, the comic is pretty extraordinary on a plot level. I’m still kind of reeling from one particular issue two, three years ago.
It depends what people say about it. I certainly won’t be watching it as it airs.
Was tempted, but I’m in the same boat as you are – I have so many other shows to either watch for the first time (Deadwood, Justified, Almost Human, Castle) or finish (Dexter, Boardwalk Empire, Bored to Death, the Wire, Mad Men) that I’d probably kick myself weekly for spending 44 min on the Walking Dead simply because its a spook show and/or because I want to “keep up with the conversation,” for lack of a better term. There are only so many free hours in the day, man.
I didn’t even realize it was on. I’ve been too busy being addicted to Mad Men at Netflix.
I’m in the exact same boat. When you have direct comparisons at your disposal — whether it’s Mad Men for “dramas on AMC” or Game of Thrones for “prestige-cable adaptations of above-average genre fare from a print medium” — TWD really, really suffers.
Not watching it. I didn’t hate, hate, hate the first season, but, as you say, life’s too short…
I didn’t watch the first season because my friends said it wasn’t that good so I’m not gonna be checking out the second, unless someone tells me it gets better.
“I didn’t watch the first season because my friends said it wasn’t that good so I’m not gonna be checking out the second, unless someone tells me it gets better.”
It didn’t. It actually managed to get worse. Bad acting, bad writing, bad editing, bad etc.
But hey, I got a DVR and a little fast-forwarding to get to some decent moments of zombie action isn’t the worst way to spend 15 minutes a week.
I can’t even remember if I finished watching the first season. That’s how little I cared about it. I think I gave up before the finale.
So, no, I’m not watching S2.
Yes! I’ve got the first episode on my DVR and am waiting for a down moment to watch it. I loved the first season and hopefully this one continues on the same score. I’ve never really cared for the comic and for me the TV show fixes a lot of the problems I had with the occasionally bog-stupid book. Definitely been looking forward to this one.
“I loved the first season and hopefully this one continues on the same score.”
It definitely does. It’s just as laughably bad as it used to be.
I don’t think I’ll ever solve your mystery, Tim O’Neil.
I’ll watch the first episode just to see what they’re up to with the new season, but I most likely won’t go any further than that. It’s so depressing how bad the first season was, considering the killer pilot (minus music choices).
More involved with Boardwalk Empire, catching up with Doctor Who, and ugh just realized they have been running a season 4 of Sons of Anarchy, so I’ll probably watch some of those, even though that show is pretty much garbage. I don’t know how many “guilty pleasure” shows I can have in my viewing list, and I doubt WD will make the cut.
Re: Sons of Anarchy — in the Hollywood Reporter article on the dearth of women writers on TV these days, the showrunner for that show said he hires men because men write men better than women do. ‘Nuff said? I mean, seriously, look at the credits for Mad Men and then tell me that isn’t one of the most deeply idiotic things you’ve ever heard.