I don't know anything about the graphic novel, but the series was a bit derivative (if not downright plagiaristic) in that the hero was shot and then 28 DAYS LATER he awoke in a hospital to find the world overrun by zombies. Also are American actors so expensive now they have to import Aussies and Brits for everything?
Well, using the same idea isn't plagiarism.
Further, the opening of 28 Days Later was an homage to Day of the Triffids. It's too good a plot device not to use again.
JohnnyGottaKeyboard said:
And there was a lot of acting in this ep--the window sniper scene was particularly annoying, but I do admit to a certain curmudgieness.
Not sure what this means. You don't like fiction shows to have acting in them? I'm a curmudgeon myself, so maybe I can understand.
I wish I'd known they were filming in Atlanta; I coulda been a zombie! In the comic, it was clear that neither the writer (Robert Kirkman) nor the artist (Tony Moore) had ever been to Atlanta, and didn't do the half-hour's Internet research that would have at least provided real street names and a proper skyline; so it was good to see my city on the screen.
They'll do okay if they follow the general storyline of the comics, while improving on its worst flaws (terrible dialogue and terminally stupid heroes). Judging by Frank Darabont's film
The Mist, he won't shy away from the comic's theme that nobody is ever safe. (And if you rent or buy
The Mist, I highly recommend watching the black & white version of the movie on the bonus disk.)
Come to think of it, it's too bad Thomas Jane, who starred in
The Mist, couldn't have played Rick, but he's busy playing a manwhore on HBO's show
Hung. But Andrew Lincoln did fine. Both he and Lennie James (who played Morgan, the grieving widower with the young son) are English, but they do pretty well with American accents.
For a fan of the comic, it was fun to see the characters brought to life. When viewers start to get attached to them ... well, there'll be some rough episodes down the road.
There are logic problems, pretty much inherent to the genre. The zombies in the show are apparently Type 1b (based on my own classification). Meaning that they're individually very slow and unintelligent -- and also that
only people infected with the zombie virus (or whatever the agent is) will become zombies. (As opposed to Type 1a, the George Romero zombie. In his scenario, everybody who dies for any reason rises as the living dead.)
That should be the most survivable scenario (though an essential element of the zombie problem changes later on), and if the military could maintain discipline, there's no way they should be overwhelmed. For the total collapse that seems in evidence, I'd have to posit that there was mutiny in the ranks and mass desertion as soldiers and Guardsmen panicked and took off to try and save their own families.