As George A. Romero never tires of pointing out, zombies should only ever be half the story, if that. The real dramatic meat comes in the human response to such a massive societal change, and what they'll do to survive when no external pressures to play nice remain. After all, once you've got over the initial shock and roaming, dessicated corpses become as much a part of the scenery as the rolling grass fields, you need to take the show somewhere. That somewhere is human drama. To its credit, the show walked this line superbly and aided by some stellar source material slowly shifted the goalposts. Season One was about finding sanctuary away from the walkers, Season Two was about dissent in the camp and season three was about relations with other groups of survivors, embodied in David Morrissey's increasingly unhinged Governor. We saw him deteriorate from a brutally pragmatic leader to an eyepatch-wearing lunatic, and come the finale he was ready to strike. Frankly, we couldn't wait the on-page Prison assault was one of the comic series' highlights, and it made good narrative sense to have the Governor go out with an end-of-season bang. But of course that wasn't what we got. What we got was a skirmish between the two camps, followed by the Governor's army getting cold feet before they all got gunned down by the man himself. Sure, that was a bit unexpected, but to have them meander through the prison before deciding 'screw it, it's not worth it' wasn't the bullet-soaked tragedy-fest we were hoping for. It simply gave the Governor too long a shelf life while Morrissey was excellent in the role, his continued existence in season four smacked of rehashing old narrative ground and holding the narrative back. Granted, new showrunner Scott M. Gimple made up for this with the barn-storming firefight of season four's mid-season finale Too Far Gone, but in many people's minds, he was half a season too late. If I were a smartarse, Id say he was Too Far Gone. Then Id kick myself in the shin for ever typing that line.
Durham University graduate and qualified sports journalist. Very good at sitting down and watching things. Can multi-task this with playing computer games. Football Manager addict who has taken Shrewsbury Town to the summit of the Premier League.
You can follow me at @Ed_OwenUK, if you like ramblings about Newcastle United and A Place in the Sun. If you don't, I don't know what I can do for you.
