Most Zombie shows are boring excuses to do terribly violent things to our neighbors. I suppose just writing this will bring the wrath of Zombie fans down on me like a crowd of walkers after a gunshot in Atlanta, but season 1 left me with such mixed feelings.
This show was a different experience for me than most genre series. Usually, I am only moderately interested in the first episode and then with each passing episode my interest grows.
With Walking Dead I loved the first episode. It was everything I wanted in a series, and reminded me of everything I loved about Romero's Night of the Living Dead. It was suspenseful and thrilling and introduced interesting characters.
But after the first episode, everything changed. I am not sure if the quality went down or if I was immunized to the techniques they used to engender suspense.
Don't get me wrong, there were scenes that I liked in the later episodes, but the magic of the first episode never returned. I found the plots to be overly predictable. They foreshadowed every event so well, I knew when everything was going to happen, and each event happened right on queue.
As a cord-cutter, it will be a while before I can watch season 2. Hopefully, they will focus more on the characters, which is the strength of the series, and less on the plot devices and obvious story models they did in season 1.