“The Walking Dead” is one of the most inconsistent shows on television. The writers deliver a mixed masterpiece of horror, drama and social commentary one week, and return a week later with far-fetched, phoned-in crap. Example: Last week, our merry band of survivors reached the CDC and its lone surviving scientist (Noah Emmerich, “Pride and Glory”). How would the writers develop this? Would real progress be made toward a zombie cure? Would the scientist kidnap them all and experiment on them? Would zombies find their way into the facility and eat everybody? The possibilities were endless.
“The Walking Dead”
“TS-19”
AMC
What we got was unimaginative drivel. Our characters enjoy the hot water and the powdered eggs and the booze (why does the CDC have booze again?). The kids play board games. The drunken love triangle channels “Days of Our Lives.” And then (spoiler warning) we find out that the entire facility is conveniently about to self-destruct the day after our survivors arrive. A few minutes of shoehorned environmental commentary about the foolishness of fossil fuels, another few minutes about whether life in the time of zombies is worth living and then BOOM. Our survivors ride off into the sunset, hoping for some better scripts next season.