'The Walking Dead' Midseason Review

I am not crazy about "The Walking Dead," and I love horror films, including those in the zombie genre. I guess I just find this show unoriginal -- yes, in these films society -- or the group of survivors in the story -- splits, either figuratively or literally, based on the moral view of each member; yes, death is always right around the corner; and yes, sometimes the little lost girl turns up a zombie -- and sometimes she is even parked in a barn full of other growling, stumbling zombies.

Romero has already explored the nature of those who still see zombies as people -- see "Dawn of the Dead," the original, when the SWAT team raids that low-income housing project and stumbles upon the hidden basement room.

Then again, other than BOREDwalk Empire, there isn't much else to watch on Sunday night.

Here is a review I read and considered worth posting.

'The Walking Dead' midseason finale review: Who gets shot? -- Ken Tucker's TV at EW.com: The Walking Dead closed out its mid-season last night, and things were not looking good for our protagonists, or for the series. The show has turned into a nighttime soap with occasional appearances by deceased but moving, flesh-rotting, flesh-eating cameo monsters. If I had to choose between another scene of Shane looking belligerent while talking in that affected drawl or one of zombies crawling all over him and eating Shane as he looks belligerent while talking in that affected drawl, I’d choose the latter. (It’s what he deserves after what he did to Otis anyway.)

How did we come to this? For one thing, the main characters slowly, steadily turned into Types: the strong silent one (Sheriff Rick); the long-suffering wife (Lori); the hot-head (Shane); the hot-head with arrows (Daryl); the blonde with a gun (Andrea); the wise old man (Dale); the wise young kid (Carl). None of these creations deepened in any appreciable way over the second season’s episodes thus far. The behavior of Glenn recently has been particularly, egregiously trite. The idea that he couldn’t keep a secret, even an important one such as Lori’s pregnancy, was played for laughs — oh, that Glenn, he just had to blurt it out! His puppy-dog love for Maggie is similarly unreflective or nuanced. Pretty girl + Glenn horny = a relationship? I’d like it to be a bit more complicated for Glenn, and Maggie, and by extension, us.

The show has not benefited from its move to the farm. At least when our survivors were in Atlanta, they were constantly on the move, a zombie around every corner, behind every car. On Hershel’s farm, there’s a lot of peeling carrots and potatoes, and idle time for Glenn to make out with Maggie. (As portrayed by Lauren Cohan, Maggie is one of the few humans in The Walking Dead who shows a range of emotions; I am pro-Maggie, even as I would bet she won’t be a regular by the end of the season.)