Time For Some Zombies

When my husband and I originally heard that The Walking Dead was being made into a television show, back in 2010, we were skeptical.  It wasn't that such a television show would be impossible to make.  It wouldn't, not with the technology and the makeup available.  No, we were skeptical because, let's face it, most television shows created are crap.  Television shows made from comic books are often worse than crap.  Hollywood is all about the bottom line. If it would sell more ads to have Batman drive a red Batmobile, it would happen, no matter how much Bob Kane rolled over in his grave.  Larry and I were worried that The Walking Dead would be hijacked by some producer who would demand that the storyline be changed to draw in the little old lady demographic.  We were also worried that the show would be cancelled after a season, just when things were starting to get good.  Why invest time and energy in a show when some idiot would decide to cancel the show, just like what happened to Firefly?

The idea of a post apocalyptic world overrun with zombies was intriguing, however.  So even though it was Halloween, one of the busiest nights on our street, Larry and I put Zane to bed and shut off all the lights.  We sat on the couch and watched as Rick Grimes woke up from his coma to find that he was the only living person in the entire hospital.  Sure, parts of the story were over the top, but that was kind of the point.  We were hooked.

A good television show is like a ride; there are curves and whirls, and you may of may not know what is happening next but oh-my-gosh you cannot. Wait. For the next scene. Even though Larry and I knew what was going to happen, we still startled and jumped and put our hands over our eyes .  Okay, so that was just me. 

We've been fans of the show ever since.

Never mind that an actual zombie apocalypse would be over very quickly instead of dragging on.  We happily suspend our disbelief for an hour or so.  It's a brief escape from the fact that we will have to be up at the butt crack of dawn on a Monday.   Our little problems are nothing compared to zombies wandering about looking to snack on you. I have great admiration for Rick Grimes and his gang of merry survivors. These people are hardcore.  The fight for survival has special meaning to me over the last year, and I wonder how far I would go, and what I would do, to survive.  Fight until you can't means different things to different people; The Walking Dead allows me to put my own fight into a different, if unrealistic, perspective.

My friends and I spend hours discussing various aspects of the show.  Daryl is a favorite character, because he gets things done without asking too many questions.  You need people like that, because zombies don't just stand around while the humans are arguing about how to kill them.  There's a faction of fans who insist that "If Daryl dies, we riot" for a reason.  We've even joked that if Daryl dies, we're all driving to Atlanta and burning down the writer's trailer.  (Okay, one of us wasn't joking, but we bought her another beer and she calmed down.)  

So tonight, Larry and I will be sitting in the dark, the television turned down low so that the screams don't wake up Zane.  There will be zombies, but there will also be determined humans ready to do whatever it takes to survive. 

I get that.