The Walking Dead - Season 2 [AMC - US] *Spoilers*

I said it after last week's episode, and after Sunday's story, I'm still of the same opinion: the "zombie" subgenre is inherently 1-note and limited. Once you move past the End of all Civilisation, all there can ever be are stories of human survival & inevitable tragedy. Afterall - what else is left except fraught survivors?

So in that sense, I guess it's kind of inevitable the show has descended into Lost-meets-zombies, where the lead characters simply mill about a forest, bickering with each other, with no apparent plot visible to propel the story along. It's not like there's an overhanging goal or prize waiting at the end of the series; even with the lip-service paid to decamping to Fort McGuffin (mentioned in episode 1), we know rightly what they'll find when / if they get there.

Once I parked those expectations and accepted the limited scope of premise, I enjoyed episode 2 far more than the first.

Of course, where Walking Dead isn't like Lost is that it doesn't have the advantage of interesting, complex characters to keep the series ticking along. There's still far too much emphasis on the Grimes' & as heartfelt the acting might be when their son was shot, it's not enough to compensate for the thin characterisation amongst the rest of the cast. I'm still baffled why Darabont decided to fatten the convoy's population above & beyond that of the comics (as I understand it) because everybody else loses. Good grief, Glenn got one line in the whole episode. Mad stuff.

Having said all that, I'm warming to the show a little more than I did in series 1; mostly because for now the dreary love triangle between the Grimes' & Shane seems to have been parked. Hopefully that'll mean the other survivors will get some room to grow & breath.

Hey - it's no Terra Nova, so it still has that going for it.