New Appreciations

Upon watching the pilot of The Walking Dead, I was reminded of how powerful a medium television is. Although comic books and video games engage the reader and player in intensive, captivating ways, the television series adaptation of this medium has brought to life what has seemed so unrealistic to me throughout our studies thus far. Personally, the idea of living in an apocalypse with walkers running around everywhere you step foot just does not click. Despite the fact that the comic book grabbed my attention with it’s captivating graphics and clever lettering, I never felt truly connected to the story – none of the characters I related to. The video game ended up being more of a struggle than an enjoyable experience, as I died numerous times and had to depend solely on a guide to walk me through each steps otherwise I would have spent an exuberant amount of time on each episode. Therefore, I didn’t really connect with the story then, either. But with the television show, I found myself enraptured by the reality of what is going on. In the very beginning of the episode, when Rick is driving up on the car accident on a deserted road and then investigates the gas station/make-shift camp, his first encounter with a walker, that little blond girl, already emotionally grabbed me. In this adaptation, the walkers look so real, so human, that it intensifies the emotion when interacting with them. Some of them looked nearly normal to me, and their ability to walk so much faster was a shocking added element. Correlating with this, they seem to be a bit smarter than in the other adaptations, as later in the episode Karl’s wife looks in the peephole and tries to open the door. Granted, that could be argued that she doesn’t even know what she is looking at, nevertheless, it sent chills up my spine! I find it interesting why this adaptation spoke to me more significantly than the others. Did anyone else experience this as well? If so, why did it stand out to you, how did you connect? If you felt more in tune with a different form of adaptation, what was it, and why? Although I can’t foresee myself watching every season of this show, I respect the series for the wonderful art and thought that goes into each scene. They must go through a lot of hard work to produce such realistic zombies!