Review: The Walking Dead - Days Gone By

Few shows this season have premiered with as much hype as the first episode of AMC's "The Walking Dead."

Then again, American television has always had a serious deficiency in the zombie department.

Some were curious how Robert Kirkman's acclaimed comic book series would transition to the small screen, especially on a mainstream cable network like AMC rather than a Showtime or HBO, where the grittier fair generally resides. After airing the premier episode, on Halloween no less, those concerns were quickly put aside.

Episode 1, "Days Gone By," grabs the audiences' attention right away; having our hero Rick Grimes (played by Andrew Lincoln) having to walk amongst the desolation of cars outside of a gas station which we later learn has no gas. The cars are strewn about in various stages of decay and damage, as are the bodies that occupy them. The show promptly earns its warnings of the nature of the show when Grimes has to dispatch a zombified young girl by virtue of a gun shot to the head.

However, the show tones it down for much of the next half-hour after that, setting the mood the story and the tragic back story of Grimes. After taking a gunshot during a fire fight, Grimes awakes from come, alone in a hospital and unaware that the world around him has devolved into a struggle for survival for the few remaining humans in a world of hungry zombies. Grimes struggles home to find that his wife and son are missing, but from the look of things, they packed to leave and weren't taken.

And that is where the real story of "The Walking Dead" comes to life. Sure, it is set brilliantly in a world of darkness, but the real depth to it is the struggle of one man to go against all odds to find his family.

Overall, the first episode did a great job of setting up the rest of the series, introducing just a small group of characters in order to not overwhelm the audience. The mood was as drab as you would want it considering the storyline revolves around zombies and the creatures themselves were a work of art, especially the legless woman Grimes finds in the park early on. The sheer torment that she was feeling during that scene was about as close to human as you can make a zombie.

The premier also made a concerted effort to focus the audiences' attention on just two narratives; hope and family. Every character introduced in the first episode shared the hope of survival, both for themselves and their compatriots. We saw the struggles of family from multiple angles, from Rick's need to find his wife and son alive, from Morgan's need to kill his zombie wife before he and his son can move on from the house they are holed up in, and how his wife Lori has taken solace in Grimes's former partner and friend Shane, believing her husband to be among the dead.

Both Jon Bernthal (Shane) and Lennie James (Morgan) do an excellent job in creating their respective characters. James's Morgan takes the cake in the first episode, showcasing just how tortured he is in his struggle to give his wife the peace she needs. Of course, the story revolves around Lincoln's Grimes character, but having a strong supporting cast will do wonders in keeping the audiences attention in future episodes as well.

Overall, the first episode did a great job of giving the audience a reason to want more, from great story, to great characters, and ultimately, to a great cliffhanger ending. "The Walking Dead" is definitely this year's show to die for.