THE WALKING DEAD VS. DEAD SET

On Halloween night, two tv series abased on a Zombie apocalypse began airing - The Walking Dead and Dead Set.

By now, most of you have read about and probably watched the new, highly reviewed and rated AMC tv series The Walking Dead. If you want to read and excellent review go to Caliban's Revenge, he give the show a 4/4 star rating.

Dead Set is more of a mini series which I lucked into when channel surfing. It airs on the IFC channel and will have several showings at least in November, the next being Wed from 5:05 pm.

Before I begin bashing The Walking Dead, let's start with Dead Set. "It's eviction night on England's Big Brother and zombies begin to attack the outside world." The show actually stars many of the real life BB hosts and contestants and held a great deal of promise. I was anticipating more humor and more character development then we get. The show's first hour is promising but quickly goes down hill with one stupid, cliched scene after the other. The ending is rather satisfying but only for reasons you'll have to watch to understand.

I know TWD started its life as a much loved and admired graphic novel (and btw Brian, 28 Days Later came first). I haven't read the novel so all my criticisms of The Walking Dead have mostly to do with the tv show and my understanding of zombie lore. I have read The Zombie Survival Guide, World War Z and So Now You're a Zombie, A handbook for the Newly Undead.

• Although aware that blood in the mouth, eyes or open wounds will get you infected, the characters have been really reckless and several should be dead by now.
• Zombies don't eat animals so the horse and rat should still be alive and well.
• Zombies have heightened senses and so are attracted to noise and human smells which cannot be covered up by covering yourself in zombie blood and body parts.
• Zombies, like these in TWD, do not have the ability to think and therefore would not use rocks to break windows. Also, they shouldn't have the ability to climb ladders or fences.
• In the second episode, we are at least 5-6 weeks into the apocalypse - most cars would have dead batteries by now and that scene of Glen flying down the road leaving Atlanta? Not a single broken down/abandoned car, dead body on one side of the road while the other is jam packed?
• Who has sex in the woods with zombies lurking about just weeks after her/his husband/best friends dies? Even if they where having an affair before the zombies came? I think the guild in addition to fear, would kill my sex drive.

Maybe I'm being overly critical or maybe I've just seen so many zombie movies that I find very little originality and creativity to be truly interested and entertained. I will keep watching.