TV - Guilty Pleasure - "The Walking Dead"

And now, something completely different.

From a beautiful, relaxed movie about Italian countryside to a Zombie horror TV serial - well I couldn't sleep and took some sleeping pills thinking it might work out,but in the meantime why not checking out another of movies in my collection. For some reason I ended up curious about this TV serial that I read about being the most popular and watched in USA - what can I say, it was so scary that I stayed up until 3 a.m. watching first three episodes glued to the screen, Adrenalin pumping in my veins and I wasn't sleepy at all - oh well, the pleasures of enjoying vacation without a care in the world.

"The Walking Dead" obviously appeal to a wide audience, though this is all hardly original, there were countless post-apocalyptic books, movies and serials before (I could list several right now) but think about it, this kind of Zombie-stories obviously scare people enough to create audience of millions. In fact, its one of the all-time most watched TV serials in US history though I doubt the high quality of first season could have been sustained later. Strange why exactly this particular story appeals to people so much, perhaps on some level people like to see black-and-white characters where its clear who's god and who's bad (without much thinking) and surely there is not much analysing and thinking about flesh-eating Zombies.

Back to (freshly watched) first season - there is a policeman (Andrew Lincoln) who wakes up in a hospital after coma (wow, nobody ever thought about this before) and discovers that the world he knew doesn't exist anymore as city is full of rotting corpses, his family house is empty and strange beings roam around the empty streets. He soon finds out that there might be quarantined safe-zone in Atlanta and goes there, just to find himself falling from one disastrous situation to another. Along the way we encounter lots of survivors who are mostly scared to death and above mentioned policeman takes a charge (naturally he is a hero, very good at heart, loves his family and helps others, while music plays in the background) which leads to more complications, danger, Zombies creeping around, blood spurting everywhere and such. Suddenly there are a LOT of other characters and is no such a big mystery who would turn good or bad (but every episode cleverly ends up with a cliffhanger) in fact, more I think about it now in the daylight, the more I wonder why was I so scared last night - everything actually sounds very much like an old cliche but surprisingly works on TV entertainment level very well. I can laugh about it now but last night I was glued to the screen and can't wait to see the rest tonight. 

P.S.

I forgot to mention that I loved recognising some supporting actors - Lennie James was in "Jericho" and here he plays in a pilot (very good actor) and in some Zombie scenes I recognised Adina Porter (mother of Tara in "True Blood") though Internet is surprisingly quiet about this cameo, but apparently I am not the only one who had recognised her. I am almost 99% sure it was her.