Sunday, October 16, 2011

OH, THE HORROR

Is everybody else as excited as I am? Tonight’s the night! It’s the return of everybody’s favorite primetime gut munching zombie show… THE WALKEN DEAD!

What? Oh. It’s The Walking Dead? Well, that’s pretty good, too, even if it could use more cowbell.

Man, we love October around here. It’s that time of the year when we hardly have to crank up the DVD player because all the channels are so jam packed with horror and sci-fi goodies. It’s also the time of year somebody has to remind the world that not only can Christians watch a lot of this stuff (a lot, not all), but that we might just have a better grasp of the subject material. This year it’s author Brian Godawa who’s taking a shot at it over at Speculative Faith with his series of post on An Apologetic Of Horror. Take a peak if you have the time. After the show, of course.

9 comments:

Larry Denninger said...

I've DVR'd (that's a verb, y'know) the first season and am looking forward to watching it. Caught bits and pieces of the first episode. Lots of tense moments.

EegahInc said...

It's not the end-all be-all of television viewing, but how many zombie apocalypse TV series are we gonna get? So, yeah, I like it so far. It looks like the second season might play with religion a little, though, so I'll have to see if it goes off the rails.

Anonymous said...

Are you watching Fox's "Terra Nova"? It's mostly serious, but the first episode had giant leech scene that was straight B-movie. Dinosaurs AND giant leeches....it's just as good with the sound turned off.

Xena Catolica

Amanda Borenstadt said...

Yay! :)

One day my niece (not Catholic) asked me (a Catholic) why Catholics like zombies so much. :p

EegahInc said...

Xena, Hard as it is to believe, I actually don't keep up with regular TV so well, so the first two episodes of Terra Nova came and went before I knew it was on. I'm going to try and catch it in reruns or on DVD.

Amanda, soooo, what did you tell her?

Anonymous said...

@ Eegah, yes, too many shows run at bedtime. I'm happy TN episodes are available online a few days after airing on the show's website; maybe this is normal now? I haven't looked to see if the Sci-Fi channel does this...Must! Resist!


Xena Catolica

Larry Denninger said...

Did you read this review? The Walking Dead Is Stupid.

EegahInc said...

Xena, I'm getting old, I hadn't even thought of that. Sure as can be, the episodes are available on Fox, and therefore available though my Dish Network box. So I'll be catching up on that show soon.

Larry, thanks for the link. Like I said, TWD is hardly the height of zombie entertainment, but even so, I think the Big Hollywood guy is a little bit off on a couple of his criticisms.

SPOILERS! I thought it was pretty clear that no guns were passed out because noise attracts zombies. You can argue that decision (and I know it gets reversed pretty quickly in the comics), but it was made immediately following a scene in which everyone survived a herd of about 150 zombies because nobody made a peep. So I'll cut them some slack there. As for Andrea being denied her privately owned gun, that choice was made by one guy, the same man who prevented her from committing suicide in the previous episode. So, politically right or wrong, he's doing it under the assumption she's going to blow her brains out, and his philosophy is that life isn't to be thrown away like that, even if the world's gone to hell.

On the other hand, his criticisms on the scouting and lookout stuff are pints well made, but hey, people do dumb things. (And again, the comics correct this error pretty quickly.)

The faith angle has the potential to go bad quickly, but it's too soon to tell. The show's producers are obviously religious illiterates(i.e. The Southern Baptist church the group goes into has a giant crucifix with the body of Jesus on it? Uh uh, ain't happening.), but that's not enough to make me dump the show yet. We'll see.

EegahInc said...

Alright, thanks to Hulu, I've now seen the first four episodes of Terra Nova. My first impression... needs more Sleestaks. Even so, I'm still gonna give it the first season to see if they can iron out the kinks.