What’s Missing From The Walking Dead?

As good as The Walking Dead is, I have always felt there was something missing.  I’m talking about the first, fourth and current seasons.  People rave about this showand to be fair, it is very good television.  But watch it back to back with George Romero’s work and something is missing.  Compared to the likes of Dawn of the Dead (especially the Argento Cut) there is a gulf.  I love Romero’s movies, but I only like The Walking Dead.  Considering its potential, that is sort of frustrating.  As the series goes on I am starting to feel it more.

God Mode

Rick Grimes, usually on ‘God mode’

Watching the latest season of The Walking Dead, I put my finger on it – why I don’t like it as much as Romero’s universe.  In a nutshell, The Walking Dead crew are just too damned infallible.  That cliffhanger people were talking about at the end of season 4?  That’s not a cliffhanger, because you know that most if not all of the main cast are going to get out alive.  They’re too dominant, they own the earth.  In fact, I’m starting to resent the main character, Rick Grimes, because of his near-Steven Seagal propensity to remain invincible in almost all situations.  With ease most of the time.  The same goes for the rest of his crew.

Time and again Rick Grimes and his crew blast their way through zombies and humans alike.  Surviving is not as easy as breathin’ in a real horror show, like it is here.  To an extent, peril is missing, especially from the zombies.  They’re more of a nuisance than anything else in The Walking Dead.  Actually, I just Googled ‘Walking Dead not enough zombies’ and on page one is an article where George Romero says exactly that.  This is especially the case when Rick Grimes and his crew are running around the country like the Navy Seals.  It doesn’t ruin the show, but it sucks away at much needed tension.  I mean the military has been obliterated but a lowly cop has an invincible crew of badasses clearing house?

Romero’s Pressure Cooker

Now in George Romero’s movies, doom is laden throughout and claustrophobia is rank in the air.  In every frame Romero translates a feeling of encirclement and imminent menace, such as the entire cast being held up in a storage room in Dawn of the Dead or a military unit being held up in an underground bunker in Day of the Dead.  The scenario in Romero’s movies is that what you are seeing is like a figurative dam, ready to burst at any minute.  What helps makes Romero’s movies work is a sense of hopelessness.  The heroes are not running around like fucking Terminators.

Ironically, the Tell Tale Walking Dead games get it right and the developers of that adaptation seem to understand the survival horror mindset better.  Survival is a room to room thing, a yard by yard fight.  There is no roaming the wilderness freely like bosses.  Maybe AMC should take a look at those episodes, which is what they really are.

So when it comes to zombies, that is one key difference that separates good from great.  Different structures between television and film?  Yes, but the mistake is not really a product of longer character arcs.  For these reasons The Walking Dead hasn’t and probably never will reach its full potential.  With a monster audience of 17,000,000 in the age of DVR and torrents for the debut of this season, I’m not sure the producers are particularly worried…