Despite the misgivings I expressed a few years ago, The Walking Dead has turned into a good watch that gets me to the TV each Sunday, or at the very least one that gets me to binge watch once a year or so. It may not be AMC’s best show, but it’s still pretty darn good.
Romero’s zombies were meant to be ghouls
I can’t really claim to be a zombie fan, though. I am a fan of post-apocalyptic stories. A HUGE fan of them, actually. Stories about survival after society has collapsed have always drawn me in, always will. Earth Abides, The Road, Lucifer’s Hammer, Alas, Babylon!, portions of The Stand — sign me up! So for me, the zombies in The Walking Dead are secondary to my enjoyment. For me it’s all about the end of the world.
Plus, there’s the whole thing about the zombie apocalypse NOT MAKING SENSE and all.
Yes, yes, I understand you have to suspend your disbelief. I get that, and I DO suspend my disbelief. I can accept that in the world of traditional Romero-ian zombie plagues, zombies exist, they eat people, and yada yada. That’s all cool by me.
My problem is that zombie plague worlds rarely play by their own rules (and they should, because in the real world there may be real zombie apocalypse scenarios just waiting to evolve and destroy us all!). It’s nickpicky bullshit, but hear me out: You get caught by zombies, they tear you apart and eat
you, right?
So how the hell are there so many zombies walking around in the world if they eat everyone they encounter?’Cause all those millions of zombies can’t be people who were bitten but managed to survive until they turned. That just doesn’t hold water. And they didn’t rise from their graves, either. Zombies can’t get through a buried casket. So where did all those zombies come from? I mean, consider The Walking Dead. The group goes into a school or warehouse or other large building and it invariably had a few dozen zombies in it. How can that be? Based on the way the world works, once those zombies started chewing on people those people getting chewed on are torn up and eat down to pulpy little bits of goop.
So again, where the hell did all the zombies come from!? It’s nitpicky bullshit, I know. Sorry, I can’t help it. As nitpicky as it is, it takes me out of zombie stories if those stories are set more than a few weeks after the outbreak, as The Walking Dead now is.
Basically, when I watch or read zombie stories, I always think the zombie population should be a lot smaller than it is. Most of the population should be wiped out, too, but if you make it six months after the zombie breakout you should be GOLD after that unless you’re a total dumbass.
Nitpicky, sure.
But am I wrong?
