Entire Writing Staff of ‘Walking Dead’ Let Go

-Jerry Lundegaard

While AMC’s new series The Walking Dead has been getting great ratings and has already been picked up for a second season, Deadline is reporting that executive producer Frank Darabont is letting go of the entire writing staff heading into next season.

The show has been on a bit of a decline (not ratings-wise, but quality-wise) since it’s incredible first episode, though there’s no word yet on why exactly Darabont has chosen to fire his writers. Deadline also reports that Darabont will most likely go into the second season of the show with no writing staff at all, opting to either write the episodes himself or assign them to freelancers. However, the show might face a  roadblock from the Writers Guild if it chooses to go this route.

The Walking Dead series finale airs December 5 on AMC

Tube Review: The Walking Dead

-Ryan Famulari

ARTICLE CONTAINS MILD SPOILERS

The Walking Dead premiered on AMC this past Sunday night – Halloween night, to be precise – and you can be sure I was in front of my television, candy in hand – and mouth, ready to sink my teeth into this highly anticipated show. And I’ll cut right to the chase. It was delicious. In every way imaginable.

Since the first time I heard the words, “zombie” and “show” uttered in the same sentence, I was in. I didn’t even know much about the source material, but the concept of a horror series based around something other than vampires was totally appealing (no offense True Blood – I still love you). Then some time went by and I grabbed the first three volumes of Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead comic series and fell even more in love with the idea of this coming to television.

Ever since my younger days, I’ve been a fan of survival stories. You know those Gary Paulsen novels. Well maybe you don’t, but I always loved those stories (see Hatchet). Man versus nature. It’s a tale as old as the human race. It’s encoded in our DNA. It’s the part of Man vs. Wild and Survivorman that makes them such a joy to watch. And at its core, it’s what The Walking Dead is all about. The Walking Dead is a survival story. It’s man versus nature – human nature, human instincts. The zombies are just the catalyst pushing the characters towards conflict. At the end of the day, what makes a great story are great characters and great conflict between those characters. That is what The Walking Dead provides. It has great characters and moral conflicts ripe for the picking.

Now take that robust source material and pair it with Frank Darabont – the man responsible for The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile and The Mist – and put it on a station like AMC – the home of my favorite show, Breaking Bad – and you got yourself the makings of a great show.

The hour and a half long pilot episode did nothing but take my expectations and shoot them to the moon. I’m not trying to fall all over this show, but I am and will continue to do so. The pilot was perfect in every way. From the casting to the direction, it was everything I had hoped for and more. The characters were far deeper than their comic book counterparts. Each actor seemed destined for their role. The shots were beautiful. And the pacing was unbelievable. After an awesome opening scene, the show takes a huge risk and sits you in a patrol car with two characters for about six minutes and just lets them talk. Where else would you see that? What other network would allow their shows that kind of breathing room? Not many. But AMC did. And it worked. Between the opening scene and the six minutes in the car, I couldn’t help but be pulled into their world. The dialogue between the two characters revealed things that a lesser show would have taken a season to convey. Let’s just say the dialogue was rich.

And the zombies. I didn’t even mention the zombies yet. They looked fantastic. The make-up and CGI was movie quality. The zombies in this show look way better than the zombies in let’s say – The Zombie Diaries. But all joking aside, something that could have been a let down, wasn’t. Bad make-up and cheesy CGI could have easily taken me out of the show, but luckily it was skillfully executed and only added to the shows awesomeness.

The main thing to focus on with this show is the writing. It was excellent. At least for now. It did everything that needed to be done. For those of you who haven’t seen the show or read the comics I won’t spoil any plot details – but those of you who have know what I’m talking about when I say our main protagonist spent the perfect amount of time with two particular characters. It is something the comic didn’t delve into with much detail, but had to be done for the show to work. I was really pleased. As far as I know, from what I’ve read in the comics so far, those two characters weren’t that important and were simply a pit-stop for the main character. But what they did in the show was genius. They gave the characters a real story of their own and definitely tugged on a few of my heart-strings. So far, so great with the writing. I can only hope they keep it up.

I would obviously recommend every single person out there check this show out. If you liked the first two acts of I Am Legend, then definitely check it out. It’s going to be right up your alley. Those of you with weak stomachs be warned, though. This show goes for it. It doesn’t hold back. So if  zombie brains exploding in your screen makes you squeamish, you may not be up for this. But at least give it a try, even if you don’t like zombies or zombie brains. You may be surprised.

Second Take

-Anthony Famulari

I’ve always been the guy late to the party on these comic book adaptations. With the exception of Watchmen and the “A-list” superheros, all of my experiences with comic adaptations have started with the adaptation itself, rather than the source material. Didn’t read 300, didn’t read Kick-Ass, or Scott Pilgrim, or Sin City, Wanted, Road to Perdition, Hellboy…you get the picture. So after seeing the awesome trailer for AMC’s upcoming show based on the comic book series The Walking Dead, I thought that for once I would prime myself for the experience. So, as Ryan mentioned, we got some issues of the series to read before the show premiered. He tore through three of them pretty quickly. I, on the other hand, barely wanted to continue reading after the first issue.

I found the comic to be pretty familiar and kind of boring. For me, zombie tales tend to become this “seen one, you’ve seen them all” kind of experience, but I had heard The Walking Dead was a bit more ambitious than your average zombie schlock and was excited to see how the comic would explore the human experience in these dire circumstances. Unfortunately, it was handled with melodrama. When the characters weren’t running from the undead they were caught in relationship triangles and back and forth banter that would have been laughable if it wasn’t so rushed and stale. I thought it would have been more appropriate for a daytime soap than a series on AMC. And so, despite the great trailer and all the hype surrounding the show, a bit of the wind was taken out of my sails. And after seeing the premiere on Halloween night, it’s safe to say that my sails are full to capacity, FULL SPEED AHEAD, LAND HO!!…Basically, I loved the show.

AMC’s The Walking Dead succeeded for me in pretty much every way I thought the comic fell short. The story wasn’t rushed, but instead was allowed to breathe. The dialogue wasn’t stale- it was insightful and enjoyable. And the characters weren’t melodramatic- they were real people who I actually cared about. The two characters who our protagonist meets in the beginning of the show are handled INFINITELY better than they were in the comic. They went from being disposable plot devices to characters I desperately hope return to the series. One of the characters in particular offered a heart-wrenching moment that was easily my favorite part of the entire episode.

The fear for me is that this show will start off hot and cool off pretty quick. And while it was indeed hot, the first episode didn’t yet reach the point in the comic where things got REALLY melodramatic and boring. But the quality of this first episode does give me hope, and there’s no guarantee that the series will continue to remain especially faithful to the comic (there have already been some slight departures). So if you weren’t a big fan of the comic or just haven’t checked this show out for whatever reason, GO CHECK IT OUT! It surprised the hell out of me and it’s definitely like nothing else on television.

AMC ‘Walking Dead’ Trailer

-Anthony Famulari

AMC has a pretty good track record when it comes to original series. Mad Men and Breaking Bad are two of the most acclaimed shows on television and Rubicon looks promising as well. So when AMC announced they would be unveiling a new show in the fall we were all for it!

As it happens, the show is about zombies. It’s called The Walking Dead. And judging from this trailer, it looks pretty awesome. The 28 Days Later comparisons are bound to be made, but the fact is that zombie movies have been around forever so there’s bound to be some similarities between The Walking Dead and stuff you’ve seen before. Hell, maybe they can even get away with calling it an ‘homage’.

One thing I haven’t seen before though is a zombie T.V. show. Movies? Sure, they’re everywhere. But it should be interesting to see what Frank Darabont and company can do with an entire series.

The Waking Dead premieres on AMC Halloween night, October 31…spooky.

Check out the trailer for The Walking Dead: