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Category:    Home > Reviews > Horror > Zombie > Cable TV > The Walking Dead – The Complete First Season (2010/Anchor Bay Blu-ray)

The Walking Dead – The Complete First Season (2010/Anchor Bay Blu-ray)

Picture: B     Sound: B     Extras: B-     Episodes: C+


The Walking Dead certainly started off with a bang.  The show was hotly anticipated in the weeks leading up to its premiere, and it managed to live up to the hype that surrounded it.  Some of the contributing factors to the first episode going over so well are due to showrunner Frank Darabont personally directing it and maintaining a strict adherence to Robert Kirkman’s source material.

However, the series quickly began to take liberties with the content of the original comic book.  Adding characters and moving around scenes is expected in order to better play to the television format, but this habit became more excessive as the season wore on.  By the time we get to the finale, certain things are practically unrecognizable from the original story, and we are left with a rather limp cliffhanger that left me feeling somewhat indifferent to the fates of the survivors.

Too much time in this rather short season was eaten up by storylines that piddled around, ultimately leading nowhere, while other episodes still managed to deliver the goods.  With only 6 episodes on order, the writers should never have to have resorted to the kind of padding that made this season so uneven.  I don’t want to say that they lost me entirely.  I’m still interested in where the story will go from here - only less so.

Image is presented in 1.78:1 1080p digital High Definition that is to-notch, largely thanks to the show being shot on the Super 16mm film format.  The HD transfer looks great, and I can’t find much of any significance to fault it with. Audio is also excellent, with a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix that is clear and makes good use of surrounds.

Bonus content includes the excellent half-hour documentary, Making of The Walking Dead.  Among the additional special features, we have a trailer, zombie makeup tips, a panel with the producers from Comic-Con, as well as several short featurettes that go behind the scenes of the show.

I have hope that the series will bounce back and regain my interest with its second season.  It certainly never took a hit in the ratings, as the final episode landed even stronger ratings than the initial broadcast of the first one.  AMC will likely be able to ride out the year of downtime and have something people are eager to get back into, providing that interest in all things zombie has not waned significantly by fall of this year.


 David Milchick


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