In the first episode of The Walking Dead, we follow Sheriff's Deputy Rick Grimes as he wakes from a coma to find that civilization has fallen and the dead are somehow walking. Alone and confused, Rick must find a way to navigate this new world without being devoured by a corpse in the process. Many shows struggle with pilot episodes, burdened with the need to exposit the premise of the series without being bogged down by lots of telling but not so much showing. Fortunately, the pilot of The Walking Dead is one of the few that delivers, and "Days Gone Bye" remains one of the best instalments of the entire series. It's pretty straightforward; as much as audiences are probably already familiar with zombie apocalypse lore, Rick still needs to figure things out for himself, and we learn the rules specific to the Walking Dead universe along with him. Even 42 episodes later, "Days Gone Bye" is a great place to start the series.
Fiction buff and writer. If it's on Netflix, it's probably in my queue. I've bought DVDs for the special features and usually claim that the book is better than the movie or show (and can provide examples). I've never met a TV show that I won't marathon. Follow on Twitter @lah9891 .
