Hate-Watching the Walking Dead

Although they're not "spoilers" as such, plot points of recent episodes will be discussed. Be advised.

As established by thinky types on the Internet (and accepted by yours truly) we're living in a golden age of television. I am, of course, spending these burnished years watching a bunch of irritable characters I don't like, engaged in actions that make little sense, during an hour that leaves me bored nearly every week. Yes, The Walking Dead has become the only TV show I regularly watch, and I have no idea why. I didn't even want to start watching it. I had read the first two dozen issues of the comic, which started strong before devolving into a travel diary with the occasional disemboweling. Also: the kind of retrograde sexual politics that really make you appreciate how progressive Dawn of the Dead was - in 1978.

So I should have known better, but then I also bought a ticket to Sex and the City 2. Sometimes I don't make healthy lifestyle choices. The pilot was pretty tight, but The Walking Dead soon became The Talky Living, as debates over whether to go on living in a dead world, and whether to value survival over morals, were endlessly rehashed. Characters were tweaked from scene to scene, seemingly just so these arguments could have legs. And outside of lead Sheriff Rick, his wife Lori, and best frenemy Shane, the characters are tragically, yet hilariously underdeveloped. Whenever the action drags, just try and figure out what T-Dog, the sole surviving black member of the group, does whenever he's not on screen. That's about 98% of each episode. Is he basketweaving his way through the zombie apocalypse? God, I hope so. But in spite of all these problems, I keep on watching. Shamefully, it's probably for the gore. In a world of Downton Abbeys and The Good Wifes, there must be room for a decent zombie chomp. And The Walking Dead can still engage by making it an unexpected corpse, from turning Sophia into a child zombie, to gutting Dale last week. Until it runs out of people to kill off, or the budget gets cut to the point where all deaths happen offscreen, I'll still be watching, waiting like a thirteen-year-old boy for the good bits to go splat.