Directed and adapted for the small screen by 'Shawshank Redemption' director Frank Darabont, the first episode is beautifully shot, written and acted, and was personally the best hour and six minutes of television I have seen this year. I find it ironic that the most beautiful television I have seen this year is 'The Pacific' and then this. Grim topics seem to ooze visual class.
We begin with a police car driving down a road, our main character, Rick Grimes getting out to find fuel at a destroyed petrol station. All we hear are the wind and the sound our the police deputy walking down the road, the odd caw of a crow and the buzzing of flies. This silence is as chilling as the whole episode got. At times saying nothing is better than anything. As he approaches the station he hears a sound. Crouching beneath a car we see a girl's legs pick up a teddy from the street, her fluffy rabbit slippers scraping the floor. Grimes gets up and calls to her, 'Little Girl'. As she turns, her face mangled and hissing blood, our hero pulls out his gun and shoots her between the eyes, her body falling to the floor and we fade to black. Welcome to our world folks!
Without giving too much away I have nothing to say but praise for this pilot episode. I was drawn in straight away to the world as we stepped back in time to see how Rick found himself in this situation, a police job gone wrong leading to him entering a coma, and then awakening into a world over run by the walking dead. In that time we get introduced to his partner, Shane, and are told of his troubles with his wife Lori. This is perhaps the one bit of extended speech in the whole episode. Besides that, I loved the way Darabont was totally visual, why tell how much time has past when you can use 'dead flowers' and a clock that doesn't work. Why explain what has happened to the world when we can walk through the world as Rick encounters it now. Why tell us what is locked inside the door of the hospital which has a huge 'Don't Open, Dead Inside' scrawled across it.
The amazing thing about the pilot is that apart from the girl in the pre-credits hook, we don't see a zombie again until the 23 minute mark, when Rick picks up the red bicycle and we get the half-woman, who howls and drags her body along.
We follow Rick's story with barely any scenes without him, and the strongest visual segments of the hour are when he is alone. We are introduced to Morgan and Duane Jones, a father and son who save him and provide him shelter. Morgan lost his wife and since then, himself and his son have stopped trying to escape, but tell Rick that Atlanta is the place to go too.
As the trio all help each other out, there was a real sense of bonding between the three characters, Morgan especially was brought to life by Lennie James. He was given the most heart-wrenching scene as he sits with a rifle pointing it at his walking-dead-wife. Whilst that is going on, Darabont beautifully montages this with Rick finding the Half-Woman, who have dragged herself across the park and laying her to rest. I never thought I'd enjoy watching a man try to kill his wife and another man shooting a mutilated zombie. It's just so dang-well acted and shot I was engrossed. I was disappointed when Rick and Morgan/Duane parted ways, and I look forward to them reuniting at some point.
The rest of the episode followed Rick heading to Atlanta, finding a horse and strolling into town. Having seen the promos for the show, I hadn't expected the 'Tank Scene' to be in the pilot, but we ended affairs with the zombies homing in on Rick, and killing the horse. Hadn't expected the horse to go so fast, thought it may have been one or Rick's companions for longer in a sense.
Also, we see a helicopter in the air, who was that? We are told that Atlanta isn't the safe-haven it's cracked up to be so wht is it doing there? As the zombies nearly put our hero to an early grave, 'Lori, Carl forgive me!', a hatch underneath the tank saves our hero for now, a call from an unknown voice radioing the tank and asking 'Are you Alive?'. It leaves so much in the balance, will Rick escape, who's on the phone? Also, I loved the ringing sound when Rick shot in the tank, the deafening noise worth taking a quick look outside the tank to adjust his ears. So clever, so well directed.
The final point is a WTF kinda thing. We see that Rick's partner, Shane is alive, as is Rick's wife Lori and son Carl, but then Shane and Lori kiss. That's gonna create some heat when the inevitable reunion happens.
So in terms of a pilot episode, only LOST has had me so engrossed so early, nothing on TV has ever looked so horribly beautiful and Darabont directed it perfectly, Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes in the lead was brilliant.
The Walking Dead has a lot to live up to now...
10/10
Adam
(Episode Two Review will be up Tomorrow :P)
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