Review of *The Walking Dead* Episode 1, Season 3

What a great episode!

Let me just say, I am an enthusiast of both the show and the graphic novel version of The Walking Dead. And I don't prefer one over the other. The show has its unique pleasures for me; the graphic novel is a source of delight in other ways. I wanted to start with that little disclaimer because, often times, when I talk about this show with friends, the conversation quickly becomes something like this: which version did it better? Were the prison sequences better in the show than in the graphic novel? Did I like how they changed the story? Or not? I want to table all of those questions for a couple of reasons. Let me explain.

To an extent, I think "characterization" in the show is aided and intensified by the talented actors and their performances. I can connect with the live actors portraying the characters in a more intimate way than with the characters as they are portrayed through the comic book.

The comic book characters, however, never fully come alive for me. And yet, the breakneck speed of the narrative pace of the graphic novel is much more enjoyable than the slow pace of the show. I can read through a hundred pages of the comic and actually see real narrative movement: people die, the party moves around, their environment changes, and so forth.

But let me focus on the show, on the first episode of season 3, which is the goal of this post.

I don't want to spoil the show for anyone who hasn't seen the first episode, but the ending was great! I think the intensity of that moment (you know what I'm talking about -- axe *cough*) will linger with me for a while. I really like the way the characters are evolving. Everyone seems to have become less hopeful, more cynical, and even more exhausted. Not only do the costumes portray the idea that these folks have been living in this "post-Apocalyptic" scenario for a long, long time, the performances of the actors truly drums up this idea: they just all seem exhausted, their nerves on edge, frustrated, angry, and nearly crazy.

One of the cool elements of this show's version of zombies is how they seem to use both the "fast zombie" and the "slow zombie," a characteristic that this episode highlighted. I've heard a lot talk about the distinction between the two, about which "type" of zombie shows up in AMC's The Walking Dead.

I think the producers of this show use both types in accordance to what their narrative demands. In other words, if they want the scene to be charged with energy and danger, they might use a hoard of fast-moving zombies; if they want to evoke the idea that their characters are moving through a routine situation, they might use one or two slow-moving zombies. In other words, the speed of the zombies are altered in accordance to the dramatic scenario. Hmm...

Can't wait for more!

Amazing Stories Episode 1, "The Ghost Train": The Train as a Symbol of the Past

The grandfather listening at a rusty track.

Last night my wife introduced me to a television show called, Amazing Stories. It's a science fiction anthology series created by Stephen Spielberg. I watched the first episode, titled, "The Ghost Train." I want to briefly review this episode and to make a case why you might consider setting aside 30 minutes to watch it.

First, some summary. It's about a family who has built a house. They bring their grandfather to the house so that he can see it. He sees the house and is very disturbed because the family has built it on land that used to be railroad land, land that had a railroad track running through it (although the railroad track has long since been torn up). If the railroad was still in existence, then the train would have run right through the house. Here's where things get supernatural: the grandfather knows a ghost train is coming for him the night of this visit. He tries to warn his family that the house will be destroyed. They, of course, think he's crazy, and have him sedated. I won't spoil the ending. Suffice it to say that something supernatural does happen.

I loved this episode, this initial exposure to Amazing Stories, and I'm glad my wife introduced it to me. It "reeks" of the 1980s, and so, I find it very comforting. My primary emotional/aesthetic response, I would characterize as "nostalgic." It makes me think of being a little kid in the similar way that watching Rankin and Bass and Jim Henson productions does.

Let me be clear; I'm convinced Rankin and Bass and Jim Henson productions are actually art. I've blogged about that already. But let me honest: with this show, I completely realize a large portion of my pleasure in it is connected to nostalgia. And so, I wouldn't go so far as to claim "The Ghost Train" is art (and yet I'm interested to hear that argument). It's quite entertaining. It's very intriguing; however, there's something it does not have the Rankin and Bass and Jim Henson has.

An interesting element of this episode: I love how the ghost is a train. In much of the 19th literature I've read, the image of the train-as-progress is very intense. And, in much of the "Modern" literature I'm familiar with, trains persist in being framed as "avatars" of progress, of the future. In this episode we have the passenger train being figured as a symbol of the past. A minor point, but I find that intriguing.

It makes me wonder if, one day, the idea of blogging, or the use of smartphones, will be figured as a parallel "ghost of the past." Hmm...

Visions of Delight, Visions of Horror (Post 5): Technology-as-Woman in *The Twilight Zone*

This afternoon I want to write  a little more on the science fiction class I taught in the summer of 2011 at Case Western, titled, "Visions of Delight, Visions of Horror: Technology and the Cultural Imagination of the 20th Century." Here's a link to the first post, where the class is explained: Visions of Delight, Visions of Horror

Yesterday I talked about a Star Trek Episode, "What Are Little Girls Mad Of?" In this episode, I suggested, we have two "figurations" of the android: (1) the android who loves humans and (2) the android who hates humans. 

Today I want to talk about another "television text" where the first kind of android is highlighted, the loving android. This text is an episode from Rod Serling's Twilight Zone, episode 7 of season 1 titled, "The Lonely." 

Let me give some summary: the episode concerns a man who has been wrongfully accused of a crime and who has been marooned on an asteroid as a kind of punishment. He has an entire asteroid to himself. His crisis of that of loneliness and boredom. He has a friend, a guard who comes to give him supplies. The guard feels sorry for him; and so, what does he do? He brings the prisoner an android, a robot that looks exactly like a beautiful girl. The android chooses a name: Alicia. They quickly fall in love together. However, the crisis comes to head when the prisoner receives a pardon and he has to leave the android. He's only allowed to take 15 pounds of equipment. At this point he doesn't think of Alicia as equipment but as a person. The prison guard, feeling sorry for him, shoots Alicia in the head. Afterwards, she lies on the ground, her robot innards--circuits, blinking lights, wires--are exposed, and the pardoned prisoner seems to come to his senses. How could he have ever loved a robot?

There are some very interesting things going on in this episode. Of primary interest, I think, is the android. It's an interesting evolution, how robots go from being the clunky tin-can looking "Robby the Robots" of Forbidden Planet, to the human-like robots of this Twilight Zone episode. It's as if, in the cultural imagination, there is a logic that turns robots into humans, into entities indistinguishable from ourselves. Consider the cyborg from the original, The Terminator. He looks quite human and a part of horribleness is that he is able to "pass" for human. 

Not only are we concerned with computers/robots becoming more powerful than us, we seem to be concerned with the extent to which they can become like us. Thus, the fear of robots can be allegorized as the fear of ourselves. 

This makes this episode interesting, which results in the death of a human-like robot the human protagonist has come to love. The end of the episode is vexed, I think. We're not sure what to think about the death of Alicia. Should we be sad for the main character? Did he just lose his love? Or! Or has he been saved from an illusion? Was the love the robot had for him just the product of programming and not authentic?

Here we start to get into the question raised by the Turing Test. What conditions need to be satisfied before we believe a machine is actually intelligent? Conscious like us?

Can't go there today. Not enough time.