I have seen just about every episode of The Walking Dead, right from the beginning up to this past week. And, if I’m going to be honest, I really only watch it for zombies getting smashed in the head.
I realize that there is more to The Walking Dead; I even understand that there are some people who love this show, and watch it together with their families. And that’s the strange dichotomy that arises from the popularity of genre culture: one actively likes it, one passively likes it. And, if we’ll use other examples of popular genre shows like Gotham and the recently-finished Sons of Anarchy, some viewers regularly tune into a show just to “hate-watch” it and see how far it will continue to slide past mediocrity into a “hot mess”, to quote another kind of genre.
The television network that broadcasts this immensely popular show, AMC , doesn’t care either way why people watch, especially as they’re preparing a spin-off to The Walking Dead that will premiere this summer. But the fact remains that a show like The Walking Dead can be two (and more) polarizing things doesn’t speak to the universality of the show, but to its extremely limited focus: The Walking Dead is a genre show, and all it will ever be is what its audience want it to be.
No matter how popular this show will become (and it has become really popular), all it will ever be is a zombie show, satisfying the trifecta of viewers like myself, the family that watches together, and the hate-watchers.
The Walking Dead has gotten a lot better since it first started. It’s currently playing out an interesting narrative in which Rick Grimes and his “family” of survivors are about to insist on a “reversal of fortune upon their doting guests. And yet, this is the same show that has made its characters more interesting from the deaths of other cast members (Always remember – T-Dog). This is the show in which seasoned veterans of the apocalypse are routinely surprised by zombie attacks. This is the show in which something always goes wrong so that zombie heads must get smashed in as many creative ways as possible.
It’s funny to hear people nitpick and complain about it, because they invariably are fans who want the show to improve. However, it’s not going to improve anymore – this is it. There’s no need to complain about all those logical inconsistencies – they’re part and parcel the logic of the world, that being the need to entertain us, the audience, who need to have our expectations fulfilled.
Speaking of my love for squishing zombie heads, I would have to admit that Zombieland was a terrible zombie movie. Watching it was an aggravating experience because, basically, “it’s not supposed to work that way”. And yet, everyone can agree that Zombieland isn’t actually a zombie flick, but a comedy; it’s just takes place in a zombie apocalypse. It dropped any trappings of being a genre movie to give us a wacky road trip with post-modern genre observations.
However, The Walking Dead will never be able to transcend such barriers. Even with the show currently taking place within a fortified town that is free from zombies, the show will be sure to include two or three zombie attacks every week. That way, fans like me can be satisfied, and the family can be entertained as they wait for important dialog and character developments to drop. This seems like a win-win situation for both groups, but this ends up hurting the development of the show.
The Walking Dead isn’t as terrible as it was earlier, but there doesn’t seem to be any point to getting emotionally invested in the characters when they live in a world in which they make stupid and irrational choices so that the audience may be entertained by the result (read: zombies). If we, the audience, are going to trap them within our expectations of what they should be, then at least we can set them free of the burden of disappointing us when they die (and they will all die).
It sounds like I’m saying “genre” means the same thing as “crappy”, but we can all be more honest than that. We can all agree that the success of The Walking Dead television show isn’t due to its stars, its dialog, or its story, but because it is committed to being the best zombie show it can be. And with all varying expectations filled of its audience, it’s already the best it will ever be.
As much this post was about the zombie genre and The Walking Dead, it’s also about videogames and the gamers who play them. We can try to imagine what the future of videogames will be like, but the future is already here: it’s the expectations we have for them.
And so it stands: for either a zombie television show or first-person shooter videogame, the very first judgment someone will have about both will be how well they adhere to established customs. Does a victim manage to get away from an attacking zombie horde just to fall down arbitrarily in the woods? Or does a headshot inflict a fatal wound, as compared to the genitals? By satisfying the audience’s needs, all genre pieces and videogames will ever be are more of the same.
Play-a-Daystation 