Dave and I are headed to Niagara Falls on Sunday, not for a romantic getaway, but for the Niagara Falls Comic Con. We'll post our thoughts and hopefully some pictures afterwards.
But I wanted to talk about something from last week that I've been mulling over constantly in my head.
The Red Wedding.
My boss, as it happens, is also a big Game of Thrones fan, but hadn't read the books, and we had a lengthly conversation on the Monday following the episode. He made an off-the-cuff remark that was more insightful than I think even he realized at the time: "The Red Wedding broke television."
Spoilers from here on out.
Did the Red Wedding break TV? In a way, I think it did, by setting the bar for shocks and character deaths at a new height. Any other character death on any other TV show seems merciful compared to what the Starks (and we, as viewers) endured.
Part of me wonders how any show, or even Game of Thrones itself, could possibly outdo that particular scene. I'm sure I'll watch some shows where some unexpected stuff happens, but I have a hard time seeing anything approaching the sheer level of horror that people experienced with the Red Wedding. And I even knew it was coming, and I'm still aghast almost a week after seeing it.
Now, time to go from a high to a low.
After seeing how great a show can be makes me a little irked at another show that I've struggled to keep up with:
The Walking Dead.
And I haven't struggled to keep up with this for any reason like time commitment or scheduling.
The show just isn't that great. I have had to go out of my way to watch this show because normally, I don't really feel like wathcing it. And, after most episodes, I'm left wondering if it was worth my time. And then, after I get a few under my belt, I feel like I have to finish watching out of spite.
Now, I'll say this: from day one, I wanted to like the show. Desperately. Because I love zombies. In fact, when it comes to zombies, it's really hard for me to be disappointed.
Zombie video games? I have the zombie genocide achievement in Left4Dead.
Zombie books? More like zombie literature.
Zombie board games? Child, please.
And I have both compendiums for The Walking Dead. So yeah, I'm pretty good at zombies.
But I don't think AMC is doing a good job with The Walking Dead, and not only when you compare it to a show like Game of Thrones, but even on it's own, it's really just... mediocre. How this is possible is beyond me since Robert Kirkman, who created the fantastically written comics, is also on board with the show.
I recently just finally finished season three, and at the end of the finale, I swear I heard the sound of a balloon deflating. I knew the showdown between Rick and the Governor was coming, but it failed miserably to deliver. Not only did it not give us the huge shootout at the end of Made To Suffer, but it made an amateurish mistake: the writers of the show made a promise to their viewers, and then broke it.
They amped up to this big showdown, and then it's over after the Governor and his men spend a few minutes groping around in the dark like a bunch of idiots, and Glen and Maggie in riot gear end up routing his entire group.
Wow. Thanks for nothing.
And then the Governor guns down his own people. This, to me, seemed less like a character going over the edge, and more like the writers lazily trying to wrap up the season.
Not to mention the show's cheesy, poorly written dialogue (see Andrea's "history will remember Woodbury" speech) and the use of horrendous cliches (see Andrea's season finale death speech). Ugh. Way to take an interesting character from the comics and make them thoroughly unlikable, not for any reason other than being annoying and one-dimensional.
In fact, one-dimensional characters seem to be a hallmark of the show. For me, the only really interesting characters are Merle, Michonne, and Carl, because they are put in situations where they can create conflict with other characters. It was a missed opportunity in the finale when Carl shoots an assailant from Woodbury after he surrenders that they did not dig deeper into what that implied for Carl's relationship with his father and with the group.
All the other characters always kind of at the same level all the time, especially Rick, always with his do-or-die approach to every damn situation. It gets tiring.
I'm sure you're all tired of hearing me gripe, so I'll finish by saying this: season three had promise but ended with a flop. Unless the season four opener is amazing, I can't see myself bothering with mediocrity any more when I hardly have time for other, better shows as it is.
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