31 Days of Halloween Stuff: Cartoons, Zombies, and the Best of Burton

Once again we bring you an irregular series of posts purportedly tied into the 31 Days of Halloween, which exists as a marketing gimmick as much as any sort of real thing. But still, October is Creep Month, and although Creep (2014) isn't on this list, we still have #7-12 of cultural junk I specifically ingest to get in the mood for the season. So let's jump in to this issue of madness:

#7: "Spooky" from Conker's Bad Fur Day - Video Game

To offer some background, I'm a complete Rareware nut, dating back in the Super Nintendo / N64 era in the 1990s. I've played the series of Donkey Kong games and their spin-offs endlessly. Conker's BFD was in many ways the last hurrah of that specific era, superficially just another cutesy platformer, but in actuality dripping in ironic adult postmodernism. I've talked about my love of this game in two separate posts from 2009. Needless to say, while I've played my share of creepy games, this one takes the cake. Oh, it does! Maybe it's the limited controls (that are daresay...realistic?), or the simple fact that it's a crazy left turn from where the game seemed to be going, but the nonstop onslaught of zombie squirrels is way more panic-inducing than it has any right to be.

#8: "Sugar Frosted Frights" from Rocko's Modern Life - TV Show

Alright, deep cut from my childhood. Again. When I was a wee lad, this episode of the surreal children's show scared the hell out of me. With trepidation I re-watched it this week only to discover that it's really...not scary at all? It's certainly bizarre, though. You can watch it yourself totally legally on this totally legal site right here. I don't know why this haunted me so. Maybe it's actually that the structure and sequence of the episode really throws you off - when you expect the biggest scare you get this weird moment of camaraderie that blatantly doesn't make any sense (even Filburt is thrown for a loop). Essentially when the big bad, the Haunted Hessian is going in for the kill the episode flashes forward a year where he relives the "goofy moments of yesteryear" with the principal cast. Still, who took those pictures?!

#9: Stranger Things - TV Show

Here's just about the most contemporary installment on this list, but still a goodie. It's probably too recent in our memory to really necessitate a re-showing in October, but 1) If you haven't seen it yet, solve that, and 2) in years to come this will certainly be a Halloween viewing requirement, if we can get over the fact that it feels SO Summer '16. Season 2 I'm sure will leave us equally indebted to creepy throwback child horror, and if it debuts anywhere near Fall, all the better. All in all, despite the addictiveness, in the end it'd be nice if there was a bit more pay-off to the lot, and it's assuredly an ironic combination of nostalgia and recency that puts it on this list. Hopefully it has staying power. You know Barb does. #1 Halloween Costume of 2016.

#10: The Walking Dead - TV Show

I've had a long and tormented history with The Walking Dead. After reading the comics I was pretty amped for the show, which delivered with aplomb for the first two or three seasons, then a solid hate-watch season, then around the time the Governor died I completely lost interest. Joe Bernthal, who's brought his tortured masculine intensity from Shane into his new role as the Punisher on Daredevil, remains the best character the show has ever had, and although its "anyone can die at any time" philosophy does wonders for its visceral and merciless world-building, it really fucks with its narrative reasons to keep watching. It's still a Halloween staple, though, and apparently everyone else is still pretty into the trite shit it's become. I've also written about this before.

#11: "The Day the World Got Really Screwed Up" from The Angry Beavers - TV Show

This is one that I really got into for a while. The Angry Beavers was a really surreal show in an age of constant surreal kid's shows. It was subtle and stupid and more often than not made no sense, even with adult eyes. "The Day the World Got Really Screwed Up" presents the pinnacle of this assertion and the show itself. It's as if The Mist (2007) took place as a B-Movie spoof in a 90s cartoon starring Beavers. It aggressively makes no sense, but all the little boys wanted to dress as Oxnard Montalvo back in '98. It's such a specific bit of culture to parody - I'm at a loss understanding why it was a priority. The results, though, is built more for adult stoners than small children. I have no issue with this.

#12: Ed Wood (1994) - Movie

For a while this made its way on my October must-watch list by virtue of it being one of the only slightly creepy movies in my DVD collection. It's not out and out horror, of course, but its focus on the film career of B-Movie...well, probably C-Movie (D-Movie?) legend Ed Wood who specialized in the macabre (or attempted macabre) makes for a fine Halloween time. The flick certainly stands out as being better than any film Ed Wood actually made and for definitely being Tim Burton's best work. It lacks the out and out fantastical creepiness of his other more overt Halloween-outings, but for whatever reason I never actually got into those. I really dig creepiness, but for some reason none of his other twisty, Danny Elfman-infused movies ever clicked for me. I suppose that's because he tends to be creepy, but also really family friendly, which kind of disarms the horror. But Ed Wood is still golden.

Also Gender Identity Progressive

So now we're over a third of the way through our Halloween List to End All Lists. Stay tuned throughout the week as we blast through more insane things from childhood and normal life to wrap our ghoulish little balls around. Kick back with a Fallgarita and enjoy the Death of the World!

Because it's on TV: Why Sleepy Hollow is Television's Best Worst Show

Wait a second...

Anyway, a nice meaty post about Sleepy Hollow has been brewing inside me for a while. Since at least when I started paying attention to this maniacal thing last year. I still really stand by that Walking Dead post, by the way, and although I've heard better things about it, that taste in my mouth is just too sour for me to really climb back into the bosom of Rick and Carl. The title of TV's Best Worst Show is perhaps a misnomer for The Walking Dead, because no part of it is "best" at all. I wouldn't call it TV's worst show by any means, but it's certainly trying hard to bring zombie genre fare to the forefront of mainstream critically acclaimed programming, and while doing so has become really really hackneyed without shifting its tone of being half-prestigious / half-gory. I'm not sure quite what to feel about The Walking Dead right now, but it doesn't deserve that title I gave it.

And Clifford Franklin, himself! Seriously, in 1999 would you
ever think Orlando Jones could pull off being this dramatic?

Sleepy Hollow sure as fuck does. Sleepy Hollow is pure insanity taken to the maximum extent. It's a genre show that relishes its genre-ness. I'm confounded tuning into this monstrosity each week while staring at disbelief at what has been turned into a show. It's a delectably creepy mix of the occult, history, science fiction, and cop procedural. And unlike The Walking Dead, I've kept watching, because at least the characters are consistent.

I don't mean to oversell the zaniness, but part of the show's appeal is how completely schizophrenic the plot is while maintaining a difficult air of somberness and guilty-pleasure inducing self-aware fish-out-of-water humour. The riff of a basic Sleepy Hollow episode goes as follows: Ichabod Crane, who is actually not a historical character, but a historical fictional character, and some chick he ran into in modern day find A) a seemingly innocuous artifact left by a founding father that is crazy magical, B) a terrifying twist on an old fable, or C) some kind of monster that will fight either with them or against them that in some way adds to the coming Apocalypse.

It's a rhythm the show rarely deviates from. Along the way we get pleasurable sidenotes about how Ichabod Crane was best buds with Washington, Franklin, and Sam Adams for some reason, which contrast our modern mythologizing with reality, faux or otherwise. The fish-out-of-water stuff is lessening by now as Crane's pretty adapted, although there's still amusing anecdotes about Crane's aversion to everything from the vagabondery of today to some pithy ranting against the power of unfailable yet deregulated banks. It's solid.

HAHAHAHAAH!!!!

Oh, and the Headless Horseman. What's basically Vice-President Agnew, this show has turned into the Horseman of Death. Yes, THAT Horseman of Death. While it spent a good amount of time finding its footing establishing a real world around Lt. Abbie Mills (Nicole Beharie, who is crazily game for this nonsense), it's now really nothing more than a weekly creature feature that has more in common with The X-Files than anything else. That's not a bad thing. Except The X-Files had immortal characters walking a fine line of skepticism and belief. Sleepy Hollow is all belief, and if not, you'll probably be killed by a Wendigo.

I find it really fascinating examining the episodic nature of this show, because it always feels so serial. In every episode they're "running out of time," "the Apocalypse is near," and "with this artifact, the Horseman of War (John Noble, fresh off the set of Fringe) will doom us all." But then none of that shit happens, the dire consequences are solved by episode's end and next week there's something else that's dooming humanity. I don't even really have a complaint about the illusion of stakes, I'm too busy being impressed by the new shit they come up with each week. You'd think they could get a couple episodes out of Ben Franklin's kite key (WHICH OPENS UP A DOOR TO HELL), but they wrap that up pretty nicely.

Sleepy Hollow wears its doofiness on its sleeve while fully committing to its creepiness, historicalness, and Relevations-centric plotting. It all makes for a damned fun experience that avoids artificial drama in favor of THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN SEDUCING ICHABOD CRANE'S WITCH WIFE. How can you write that sentence in a serious show? Sleepy Hollow treats that shit deadly serious, which makes it a show worth watching. You can catch it tonight. In like, two hours.

Because it's on TV: Why The Walking Dead is Television's Best Worst Show

As far as television watching goes, The Walking Dead is an enigma. It consists solely of niche genre material, but it's massively popular. It swings between moments of horror, gore, flighty drama, and unintentional uproarious laughter. Lately for me, it's been mostly the latter. Ever since this moment, these singular six seconds, I haven't been able to take this show seriously. This past Sunday night, for the first time in the long time I didn't watch the episode when it was on. Okay, I caught like, the last twenty minutes. It's still the best show to hate on television.

After its rousing first season, The Walking Dead found itself in a unique predicament among its genre - where the hell to go? Most bits of zombie fiction find ground in serial form, not episodic. After all, everyone has to die eventually. The world collapses and is screwed (Dawn of the Dead [2004], 28 Days Later [2003]), sometimes maybe it gets better (World War Z, Warm Bodies [2013]), but there's not a whole lot out there that deal with getting on with daily life after the event. You've got your Day of the Dead (1985) bunker party, and sure, the romping fun of Zombieland (2009), but these are still movies. Singular looks at a time in the lives of these characters, sure it's a post-apocalyptic time, but sooner or later, you've got to think that death is going to catch up. Maybe not for Tallahassee, but how much can you do in the face of complete societal annihilation?

Apparently one first season and like, four, maybe five Governor episodes. I'm not sure why the comic book version of The Walking Dead was so palatable while the TV version lost sense of its characters so quickly. Maybe it's because Robert Kirkman only has to deal with Robert Kirkman and not the ebb and flow of actors moving on to other projects, a string of good and bad showrunners, or just the trickiness inherent to the adaptation of any fiction to a medium that doesn't quite support its storytelling process as neatly. Needless to say, the following will include a hefty dose of recapping plot and character events of the past few seasons, in particular the abysmal last halfsie we just got, so catch up now. We'll wait.

...

Let me tell you about this guy we used to have named T-Dog...

For whatever reason, the show has lost a good deal of traction of its characters, or just any kind of motivation that makes sense for anybody. I think my breaking point for this kind of stupidity was "Indifference" (S4;E4), which features a constant stream of frustrating moments. On multiple occasions, Tyreese just kind of gives up while fighting walkers for no real reason other than to create tension, because he's such a badass that nothing should really pose a threat to him. He's the Optimus Prime of The Walking Dead. He's kind of bummed about Karen being killed (yeah, I had to look up her name. There was never  reason to care about her or remember her. She's basically a fridge chick), but it's not like he's so bummed that he can't fight eventually. Daryl doesn't save him or anything, he's just apathetic until he's about to die. All the while he actually has a really good reason for once to be an angry black stereotype, which he never has been.

To this we can add Carol's suddenly growing insanity, from raising a child army to being the one that actually did kill Karen. There are also these constantly shifting dichotomies between Rick and Herschel, and then even Rick and Carl, that never really have a lot of background. The Walking Dead has just such an immense need for plot, it finds itself lurching forward constantly and forcing all these dramatic issues that aren't really there. Why, at the apex of his power, after crawling back from nothing, and with both sides in agreement, does The Governor make Herschel into a pez dispenser? Because he's crazy for the sake of craziness, and apparently without redemption, even though the smarter ploy for him and his manipulative character, if he really hated Rick, would be to absorb himself into the society and break it down from within.

So the show just spins its wheels and creates these artificial moments of drama. It no longer has any real story but simply the continued survival of the characters. In stark contrast to Zombie cinema, where almost everyone eventually succumbs to virus and death, or maybe it ends with some vague "hope" like I Am Legend (2007) or the film adaptation of World War Z (2013), but things always need to end. The Walking Dead, solely because of its medium, is instead concerned with survival. Which, despite the relatively egregious lack of character shields, makes it a less interesting show.

Because of The Walking Dead, or perhaps in spite of it, there have been a handful of other horror shows popping up on mainstream television, most notably FX's American Horror Story and Fox's Sleepy Hollow. Unlike The Walking Dead, however, these shows don't concern themselves with melodrama or try to build up these moments of sincerity that the show so desperately tries. AHS and Sleepy Hollow wear their insane camp on their sleeves and deliver some of the most entertaining, if not batshit crazy programming on television.

AHS also gets around The Walking Dead's peculiar survival problem by billing itself as a mini-series and recycling the cast each year into a new location and time period. Even though Coven had one of the roughest crash and burns after starting out with some hefty promise, it's had a ton more fun than the overly self-serious Walking Dead. Especially with its big fake "Awww, Nooo!" moments. And Sleepy Hollow just fucks logic in the ass without abandon. It's awesome.

I would have been okay with
an entire Plissken season.

The Walking Dead does have these really exceptional moments, though, when it slows things down and explores what's left of humanity and how we got there in these little vignettes, sometimes through entire episodes like "Clear" (S3;E12). It's best at experimentation and following these little moments, like just about all of the episodes centering around The Governor at the tail end of last season (before you know, his needless descent into poor decision making, and his beaux's inability to watch her on child you know, during the ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE going on). This is despite all these really obvious metaphors like the Governor and his chess set. Yeah, he's the king, everyone else is his pawn, we get it. I've wondered more and more if this show is so popular because it makes people feel smarter for having understood the fabulously simple symbolism that runs through it.

The one hope I have is that so far, this latter halfsie of Season Four looks to be separating and breaking down its characters more and giving them a chance to grow without the overbearing pressures of sudden plot. It's The Empire Strikes Back (1980) - split everyone up, beat them to shit, and let's actually grow some characters with a little more focus. It's "Clear" again. Which is a good thing.

And while we're here, before we go this is a great time to chat about The Talking Dead, which could be the worst show to ever hit television. It's just a sort of awkward recap show that mostly offers fan service rather than any real criticism or critical insight. Chris Hardwick is insufferable as this anointed representative of geeks who is the worst kind of geek, who exists only to regurgitate pop culture while being sponsored by the pop culture he's regurgitating. It's rough.

The Walking Dead comes around again this Sunday at 9 pm on AMC. I haven't really decided on if I'm watching it or not. Are you?

Does your introduction to a new TV show affect how much you like it?

Over the past few years I have heard nothing from my peers except statements such as " You would absolutely love Breaking Bad!" or "How do you not watch The League?" or even dare I say it, "Hey, The Big Bang Theory's a good show!" Lately that has been transformed into "You gotta watch Game of Thrones!" or "Archer is the perfect show for you, man!" I probably have a brain issue or something, because when I hear things like this, my desire to check out the show in question drops tremendously.

It may just be my natural contrarian nature. Or it may be the fact that I'm too proud to get into a show that I didn't discover for myself or bring others into. I started watching LOST at Season 5, but that was after all my other friends had long since stopped watching - what fools...Moreover I find it arrogant for others to think they can dictate what I like. For that reason I'm in love with Always Sunny but not The League. I will continue to giggle my pants off at Workaholics but ignore Archer. And I'll have my Walking Dead instead of Game of Thrones.

A path to any show tends to be pretty personal. I am honestly wondering if anyone else out there feels the same way I do. By nature I gravitate towards the downtrodden and cultish - these are shows that understand and cater to their audience, thus offering a very specific form of entertainment. You can wear this target like a badge of honor and know that you were selected as one of the few fans. I'm proud to say I caught on to Always Sunny and Community in their first seasons, but I'm also aware that this kind of thinking is the worst sort of Hipsterite Pretension.

Like I said, by my nature I generally abstain from mainstream or popular works. However, when the obscure becomes the norm for my group of friends I tend to bounce back against that. For that reason, I've become an authority on the last three seasons of How I Met Your Mother, mostly for the fact that it becomes something I can only share with a small number of my peer base. That show, while certainly broader humour than a show like Community, has enough niche and in-jokes to reward its long-term fanbase, and getting into that recently has paid off.

To some extent though, especially with long-form serial dramas, I feel like I've reached my quota. I was into LOST for a bit, and then got into the characters of The Walking Dead from reading the comic books. It's tough to also invest in Mad Men or Breaking Bad, no matter how good those shows seem to be. While I mentioned enjoying shows that reward its niche fans, what makes it more difficult to get into something like Breaking Bad is exactly that - jumping in now feels like overstaying my welcome at a party I wasn't invited to. I can't be a poser.

There's options, of course. DVDs and Netflix exists to allow any viewer who desires to to catch up during a long weekend. To be honest though, even with increases in binge viewing, that kind of marathon just isn't worth the time. There is no organic internal reason for me to become invested in a show like Breaking Bad or The Wire except for the fact that everyone else seems to applaud it.

Seriously, her name is worse than Quvenzhané Wallis

Game of Thrones is another badge show that everyone else also suddenly seems to be really into. While I have gotten along perfectly fine for nearly thirty years without HBO, I get chastised constantly for not going out of my way to find a way to see it. Ten years ago I had a strong interest in The Lord of the Rings. While it would seem as if that should make a transition to A Song of Fire and Ice palatable, my biggest stumbling block there is honestly that my Fantasy Knowledge Bank is full. I spent the past decade and a half exploring (again - an internal, organic interest) the Houses of Beor, the obscure journeys of Alatar and Pallandro, and the Oath of Fëanor, and all the other crap that sprung from Tolkien's giant crazy head. Before that I spent twenty years on Sci-Fi so I can stand here today and recall every single unnamed Bounty Hunter from The Empire Strikes Back (1980) from memory (Bossk, Dengar, IG-88, Zuckuss, 4-LOM). My nerd brain is tapped out. I can barely keep the name of Danaeryus Tannegran in my head. I did that from memory - what is the real spelling? Daenerys Targaryen? Great. I just can't do this. It's exhausting.

I think I've come to my breaking point with Archer though. I have to wade it slowly. I resisted the show at first because I thought that the voice acting was all very obvious (Jessica Walters in a similar crazy bitch mother role to Arrested Development's Lucille Bluth [now, there's a show I watched every night it was on ten years ago] lacked originality to me instead of being pitch-perfect), especially H. Jon Benjamin, who I believe is a very good voice actor for the one voice he has, but is now tremendously overexposed. I really still only hear Coach McGuirk in my head. Still, the fact remains that it is one of the smartest shows on television, the writing is crystal clear, and that bit about Nightcrawler being Archer's favorite animal with a prehensile tail really got me. I identified with that.

So what does this amount to? An angry nerdy rant? A confession that I'm maxed out on the characters I can follow? Or maybe that I'm just simply a huge egotistical prick who hates being told what to do or who to like. Let me know what you think - are you more likely to enjoy a show you discovered on your own or one all your friends recommend?

Sound off below and happy channel changing, amigos -

Hey! There's New TV on Right Now!

It's about time folks, after quite a drought in one of the busiest months on record, it's time we chat about the 2012-2013 Television Season. As I figure it, we only have about two months left until the Mayans destroy the world anyway, likely with a Giant Moon Laser of Some Kind, but that really depends on how you translate their ancient text.

So we have plenty of new shows to dig our eyes into this year. None of them look particularly good, but we can at any rate enjoy our last season of Community in peace. Probably. Let's blend this into three big categories:

Huge Overarching Drama Crap:

I still can't quite figure out why Networks are still going after this stuff. There's plenty more LOST-type shows that will cost producers millions of dollars when they go down in flames. It's the idea that Television must offer something that movies can't - a longstanding serial that provides for intricate character moments as well as a much larger set of DVDs for later purchase. It almost seems at some point that these kinds of "Big" TV Shows (and every HBO show) is more made for the DVD life than the TV life, its time in broadcast is more to peak interest and legitimize the format. Any serial that went straight to DVD would be ignored, but it provides the kind of lazy marathon watchability often required for deep readings.

I mean, honestly, they even ripped off the fucking Heroes logo

Not all of these are LOSTy, some are more ripping off the kinds of Homeland-type shows that have sprung up recently (and won a ton of Emmys while going at it). This year you've got Revolution and 666 Park Avenue which both promise weird intrigue throughout. The former has J.J.'s name slapped on it, which is becoming ubiquitous enough to lose both the specialness and fresh style he brought to projects like Mission Impossible III (2006) and Star Trek (2009). 666 Park Avenue stars Locke as Satan and the hot chick from Transformers (2007) (no, the other one) along with a big dose of who give a shib.

Moving on from that we've got things like Last Resort and Vegas, which seem innocuous at best, even if Last Resort is trying superhard not to be. I get why Last Resort is controversial, because it features crises of conscious in the American Military Complex, but the marketing hasn't actually shown us why we should care (or even shown us what the plot is - I had to Wikipedia that shib).

Offbeat Doctor Shows:

There are three new Medical Programs this year, all of which aren't really that typical. The first is Fox's The Mob Doctor, which features that hot chick from The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard (2009). Great get, Fox. The same network has The Mindy Project, which for some reason hasn't caught my interest at all despite liking everything that Mindy Kaling has done. I'm most curious about how Bill Hader does playing a normal character on this show, the dude is on his way to becoming a classic comedic character actor - is this where his actual career takes off or grinds to a halt?

Finally, and finally, not least of all we've got Monkey Doctor. Oh, sorry, I mean Animal Practice. Monkey Doctor has a premise so insane it really belongs in Sarah Marshall's oeuvre. Seriously, I mean, they're parodying NBC's terrible desperation for gimmicky shows - and of course Monkey Doctor is on NBC. It does have Taylor Labine, who is the best part of both Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010) and A Good Old Fashioned Orgy (2011). For some reason, though, I don't think Monkey Doctor will follow either of those genres.

Other Comedies Worse than Community:

We don't really know that Community will be cancelled. Will it be the same without Dan Harmon, though? No. And thus it may as well be. At any rate, NBC will say goodbye to 30 Rock and The Office this year. And they're really hinging their bets on Monkey Doctor, Guys With Kids, and The New Normal? I already confused Guys With Kids with Baby Daddy on ABC Family (which seems like a total rip off of Fox's Raising Hope without any of the intense heart). I'm curious when we will get to the point where homosexuality on television will be normal instead of (ironically enough) pointedly abnormal. Will & Grace and Modern Family did it. Shows since then like The New Normal in their showcasing of sexual preferences are more abject in their depiction than anything really helping the gay cause.

Jeez, we've got more. There's Ben and Kate on Fox, which stars one of the German guys from Beerfest (2006). I'll pass. CBS has Partners (see The New Normal, above). The best of the lot may be NBCs Go On, or as Ryan Lochte calls it, Goon. Will it be as good as Goon (2011), one of the greatest Hockey Films of the last ten years? No, but we'll watch Chandler anyway.

We've Got Three More:

ABC offers us a great chance to ogle Hayden Panettiere on Nashville. I can't think of another reason to watch this show. Hey, she's been legal for a while now. There's also Elementary on CBS which offers us a white British Sherlock Holmes played by some white dude and an Asian Woman Watson played by Lucy Liu. I'm not sure why Sherlock Holmes is the hottest dude on the block right now, but it's nice to know a classic character of pulp literature who seemed to peak a century ago is doing well. The same can't be said for everyone.

No carbs.

Lastly, we come to a series that I may actually watch this year, Arrow. The only thing really out of whack with this is that it's on the CW. I mean, really? Fine. Now, I spent a lot of time in this post just talking about Hot Chicks, and that's just because I'm a dude, but look at star Stephen Amell in this poster. It's ridic - you could grate cheese off those abs, man.

Arrow is cool because it features the Green Arrow, one of the more underused DC Heroes who is basically the DC equivalent to Hawkeye. Except that Green Arrow predates Clint Barton by over twenty years and is also one of the more politically intriguing heroes in the DC Pantheon. He's the kind of dude that DC needs to take off if they ever want to get half as close as Marvel has to fleshing out a live action universe (despite varying degrees of success in Smallville...). It's a cool idea and I do complement the CW for taking a bit of a risk on this one - not every network would hinge their bets on a property like this - of course, that's also why a lot of Networks fail. I'd guarantee those aren't peacock feathers on the fletching.

I looked up that terminology.

So what's in store this year? One of the most interesting developments to watch may be the ongoing battles between singing judging shows - both as a rotating part-time job for every possible singer who's had a single hit in the past twenty years and as a fierce competition between Networks. My guess is that American Idol finally falls this year, to be replaced by Dancing with the Stars, The Voice, or hell, Modern Family's got a decent shot at a big upsurge.

There's plenty more to talk about. We can't really ignore the NFL - Sunday Night Football was the highest rated of any regularly scheduled program last year. The game itself is becoming an art form, with storylines interwoven into the broadcast, appealing to a far greater number of people in all demographics than anything else that's worth watching or recording. It's going to be great - really great, in fact, until everyone realises that players receive concussions, become suicidal, and the sport goes the way of Boxing, with Brett Favre shaking all the way to the clinic.

I also ignored cable here. Cable is tough to judge all at once - its shows come so in and out. In fact, that gave the Emmys trouble this year, with shows like AMC's Mad Men's Season straddling the deadline for submitting for nomination. That's not why shows like Rescue Me were ignored, though, and to judge quality by judging Emmys is a serious fault. I'll save you some time, though: Breaking Bad is the best drama, Louie is the best comedy and there ain't shit else coming down the pipe. Maybe The Walking Dead. If they don't spend half a season killing each other looking for a lost girl, that is.

Turn up those knobs - what are you watching this fall?

Because it was on TV: Diminishing Reasons for Watching the Walking Dead

If you're fan of AMC's The Walking Dead, you're one of many fans who waver every week between extreme thrill, frustration, and like heroin, an addiction that is proving more hazardous to your health than the payoff high. In the past two weeks the show, which has pushed effects, gore, and liberal character shields since its start, has deleted two if the best reasons for watching. Needless to say, many SPOILERS for both the Walking Dead comics and Season Two follow.

While it had some initial success, The Walking Dead in its most recent half-season of Season 2 has become one of the most watched shows ever on Cable Television. This is after years of an intricate, successful, and on-going comic run. There have been deviations certainly between the show and comic, one notably was the character of Shane, partner and rival of main dude Rick. In the comics Shane was offed pretty early on, by Rick's son, Carl protecting his pappy. In the comic world of Walking Dead, though, people tend to die all the time and through its run the only real mainstays have turned out to be Rick and Carl. The Show has had less of a turnover, at least until the last couple weeks of this season.

Shane lasted much longer on the television show, and has proven to be one of the most reliable characters. That is, not reliable in the story (of course), but his character, as acted by Joe Bernthal, is one of the more consistent and less stupid of anyone on screen. After the torrid first half that was spent whining and weeping over this lost girl, who was probably dead, Shane was the only one to think "Well, this little cunt is probably dead." That little cunt as it would turn out, was actually dead. Shane is the only character with any backbone.

The main opposition to Shane had always been the old man Dale, who among all the chaos had always held a consistent positive belief in Humanity. Through the bulk of "Judge, Jury, Executioner" (S2,E11), he serves as literally the only moral compass left in the group, the only one clinging to a faith in the good of people. This episode seems to counter this belief. The innocence and naïveté of Carl, who toys with and then refuses to shoot a Zombie trapped in some mud, as well as Dale's own curiosity and lack of a guard directly leads to his death. In light of this it seems as though Shane's philosophy should win.

Shane believes that the world has become cruel and humanity must in turn become cruel to deal with it. He's a Darwinist, capitalist, and an all-around badass. He is no longer trying to save humanity but rather to save a very select few, for personal and selfish reasons. He also tends to walk around looking like he's about to rape somebody. As amoral as he is, he has a consistent and well-articulated belief system and should have served as opposition to Dale in more of a Jack / Locke sense from LOST than they really found room to in this show.

Looking around at other character philosophies is difficult. Carol is effectively completely useless and should be a corpse in the making. Ditto with T-Dog. Who yes, is still apparently the only Black Man in Georgia, and the only one to have a racial nickname that everyone else uses all the time. This is despite the comics' rich collection of fleshed out and important Black Characters. Carl is from what I can tell, basically autistic, although that may just be the acting. Glenn, always a backer of Dale and someone who believed in the good in people suddenly seems to only care about getting his dick wet, which somehow makes him less focused on protecting his girl, Maggie, who wavers between protecting her family and helping strangers constantly. Andrea is suicidal, but clearly inconsistent with that belief as well. I have no idea why Daryl is still around, he's clearly the only one who would be fine on his own and has no strong attachment to anyone in the group any longer. Even visions of his brother, who Rick left to die, suggest the same. While this is going on, his philosophy is largely unsaid, he's more of a weapon or tool that the others use to hunt Zombies, and not much else goes on in his head it would seem.

Hershel is interesting because he was clearly of the "Good in Humanity" side, even after that Humanity turned into Walkers. Shane effectively broke his once-firm resolve, though, destroying the patriarch of the land they are squatting on and making a clear path for Rick to become the unquestioned leader. Well, unquestioned outside of Shane. Rick is the worst offender out of anyone here. Ditto with Lori. What do they really want? It's almost impossible to tell. There isn't anything compelling about his character. It's a more believable character that he doesn't know what to do in some circumstances, but staggering to believe that he doesn't know what to do in ANY circumstance, or why anyone should follow his leadership. He rarely at any given point during A ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE even has any idea where his only son is. Lori also seems to waver on the idea of either saving herself and immediate family or looking out for the good of the group. They can't seem to understand, like Shane does, the possibility that these concepts are mutually exclusive or conversely like Dale does that they are not. There is no strong conviction between any of these characters.

So Dale is killed and that should have set up this great moral choice for Rick to perhaps, fill his shoes, despite the strong evidence that Shane's way of life is the new way of the world. If Rick were a strong character he could defend this proposition, build a side around himself and work to honour Dale's memory. Instead he's classically wishy-washy. When faced with Execution at Shane's hands, he convinces Shane to drop his guard, to have faith in him, as he has tried to do ever since he came back. In this moment, he's actually convinced Shane to have a little more faith in the Good of Humanity int he face of Armageddon. At this Rick reveals that he's really on Shane's side of the Morality Argument - that protecting an individual is more important than the survival of the group (losing Shane is losing someone who was actually training Carl, Andrea, a solid workhorse, and an ultimate defender of the homestead), as well as confidence in a higher morality or humanity. Shane's face as he dies is one of utter disbelief because of the viewpoint bait-and-switch Rick has just pulled. It's astounding. As Shane dies he must think, "So does the only integrity in this new world..."

It's a bold move. Shane and Dale were some of the only characters worth watching. No one else is really that captivating. At this point there isn't a tremendous amount of reasons to turn in again. It seems that the producers had planned for Shane's exit since Season 2 began, but they still offed him too early. He's far too much of an interesting character to die at all, really, as one of the few who knew Rick before the Apocalypse, and the focal point for not only so many storylines, but for so much of the philosophy, authenticity, and compelling moments of the show. His ghost will live on whenever Rick looks at Laurie's Baby, wondering if it is his or Shane's (of course, in the comics, those two didn't last much longer either, so who knows).

Despite its continuously clunky dialogue, incessantly stupid characters, and plodding, dopey plot that never seems to find any footing, The Walking Dead has managed a Golden Globe nomination, a third season, and a loyal fanbase, mostly filled up with people like me who just waited for Shane to scowl and off someone in any given episode. Now that that aspect is missing how will they recover? Rumours abound of The Governor being the Big Bad for Season 3. Will Rick be any more compelling without a hand? I hope so.