The Watching Dead

Mark and I watched four and a half hours of The Walking Dead on A&E Sunday. First, let me say that A&E? Throwing around that Arts and Entertainment title very loosely these days………
I actually watched the show a couple of times last season. I got past the first time only because Andrew Lincoln, the guy who pines for Kiera Knightley’s character in the movie, “Love Actually,” my favorite modern romantic Christmas flick, is the lead actor. He plays Rick, the deputy sheriff of some southern town. I thought, when I watched it last winter, that it was kind of a doofy show except for him. After sitting through an entire evening of last season and this season’s premier, I’m not inclined to change my mind much.

The following are my complaints – in no particular order. Rick’s accent is in a word, appalling. Couldn’t they have hired someone to teach him southern lingo or at least have him watch Gone With The Wind? Andy Griffith and Hee Haw re-runs are on all the time.
Since Andrew’s character is the sole bit of eye candy on the show, they should really pay more attention to how he looks – maybe take some pointers from the Winchester Brothers on Supernatural. Rick looks dead and I’m positive he’s supposed to be one of the live people. No budget for spray tans?

The women in the show range from mild whiner to, if you call the zombies I’ll hold her down long enough so they can catch her. Even the kids are unappealing and annoying. Would it be awful to leave them all tied to trees or at least re-cast?

There are four guys besides Rick in the main ensemble. One is Rick’s best friend, who had an affair with Rick’s wife. Rick doesn’t know and the wife (mild whiner) is full of righteous indignation toward the friend because he apparently told her Rick was dead, so why wouldn’t she fall into bed with friend. They whisper passionate/hate-filled things back and forth to each other throughout each episode and I’m convinced by now that Rick is completely deaf or stupid because he’s never more than three feet away. There is an old guy who is the mechanic for the RV they travel around in and keeper of all weapons. The other two are Asian and African American, respectively. I find it weird that neither the women nor the two minority men are armed on a regular basis. What’s that word..............?

Every annoying thing listed could be forgotten if it wasn’t for the obvious.

The zombies.

They are screamingly funny.

I’m pretty sure they’re not supposed to be funny.

It’s not just that they look like a mask I could pick up at Wal Mart, it’s that we’re supposed to buy that people in the show are worried about escaping them. Honestly, all you have to be is awake. Their brains are cheese-whiz and because there’s no blood flowing, their skin is like parchment paper. A stiff breeze won’t take them down, but a baseball bat will – or if one isn’t handy and you’re, say, laying, just out of a coma in a hospital bed, so will the jello you got with lunch. They move at the speed of turtle so you’d have plenty of time to take aim.
All in all, it’s one of those shows that, as an intelligent adult, one really doesn’t need to watch.

But I will.

It’s not that I don’t have better things to do with my Sunday nights. It is the final season of Desperate Housewives. It’s just – well, I’m hooked. Mark too. At least a little. I fully expected him to be the voice of reason after Dead was over and say something to the tune of what a waste of an evening that was, but he didn’t. We discussed the same things I’ve mentioned here, then he looked at me.

“Next Sunday at eight,” he asked.

“I’ll meet you here.”