By: Mark Julian
Calling last year's success of The Walking Dead a surprise doesn't even begin to describe the way AMC's zombie show ambushed fans and critics. With that in mind, last night's Season 2 premiere had gargantuan expectations and I must sadly report that the show fell a little short. Now the premiere was not a bad episode by any stretch of the imagination, far from it. The show picked up right where we left off from the Season 1 finale with the same intensity, imagery and ickiness that everyone loved. If anyone had fears that the show would drastically change after the departure of Frank Darabont, I think you can put those to rest. But therein lies our problem; in a 1hr-30min premiere, you're expecting to be astounded, disgusted, or at the very least treated to something besides the norm. The premiere just felt like another, regular episode of the show, nothing truly exceptional or extraordinary occurred. Tack on the fact that it was really an 1 hour long episode, stretched out by incessant commercial breaks and you are really left a tad exasperated by what AMC presented.
Now please be advised that when I'm assessing the Season 2 premiere, I'm thinking back to the premiere of Season 1. The very first episode of Walking Dead, "Days Gone Bye" had a tautness and a sense of urgency that "What Lies Ahead" simply lacked. Now as Season 1 progressed, the subsequent episodes lost the opener's urgency and the pacing of the show became this meandering waltz where the group just sort of wandered while surviving random encounters with the living impaired. For the premiere of Season 2, I was expecting the show to recapture the urgency of the previous premiere but instead we got more waltzing. Luckily, the best aspects of the show are still intact and shined through to raise the level of enjoyment. The dialogue is superb, the cinematography is great (by TV standards) and the characters continue to develop and evolve. I was relieved to learn that Jon Bernthal's character, Shane Walsh wouldn't continue to shamelessly pursue Rick's wife in such a lecherous fashion. The other main plot point from the Season 1 finale was also addressed to some extent with the interactions between Laurie Holden and Jeffrey DeMunn's characters. It will be interesting to see if Shane and Andrea do indeed slip away as discussed and the show is bisected into one group led by Rick and another led by Shane. We were treated to some fabulous zombie killing scenes in this episode, courtesy of everyday hand tools and the zombies themselves returned in all of their fabulous gore. The ending was also exceptional and goes a long way towards instilling some adrenaline into the episode. The camera work was great here and for a moment I thought the buck was going to turn out to be zombiefied. Instead, directors Ernest Dickerson and Gwyneth Horder-Payton gave us a surprise ending that all but guarantees that audiences will be tuning in next week.
The shows first 5 minutes are great as are the last 5 minutes. Unfortunately, what happens in the interim could occur in any regular episode of
The Walking Dead and while that's definitely not a bad thing, I was expecting a lot more from a season premiere. Overall, I have to give the episode:
7.5/10
Here's a condensed recap of the premiere courtesy of AMC.
And here's a preview of Episode 2,
Bloodletting.
The Walking Dead is an American post-apocalyptic horror television series developed for television by Frank Darabont and based on the ongoing comic book series, The Walking Dead, by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard. The series centers on a small group of survivors led by Sheriff's Deputy Rick Grimes and his family.
The series premiered on October 31, 2010, and is broadcast on the cable television channel AMC in the United States.
The first season premiered to universal acclaim and was nominated for several awards, including the Best Television Series Drama at the 68th Golden Globe Awards. Based on its reception, AMC renewed the series for a second season of 13 episodes which premiered on October 16, 2011.
The pilot received 5.3 million viewers, making it the most-watched premiere episode of any AMC television series The first season finale received 6 million viewers, a series high; with 4 million viewers in the 18–49 demographic, making it the most watched basic cable series for the demographic.
In the United Kingdom, it premiered one week after it did in the United States, on November 5, 2010 on cable channel, FX. The premiere had 579,000 viewers, almost double for any other show on FX that week. The viewership dipped during the season then rose to 522,000 viewers for the final episode. The terrestrial premiere on Channel 5 on April 10, 2011, averaged 1.46 million viewers.