The Top 5 Things That Annoy Me About The Walking Dead

I haven’t tried to hide the fact that I’ve been less than enthused with the past couple of seasons of Walking Dead. I’ve called it both “The Walking” and “The Boring Dead.” I hadn’t really put together why, so I thought I’d try to lay it out here.

1. Why haven’t we seen a horse since the first episode? Cars aren’t working. Why aren’t people riding horses and mules? Even the gorillas in Planet of the Apes figured that out. Hershel had a farm, but no horses? Seems like that would have been a priority. I just think we would have seen a few around. And dogs. Where are the dogs? They were  used in the Terminator universe as a cyborg detec tion system. I have to think they could pick up on walkers. Or at least hear them coming.

Which leads me to the question: Are the Amish better prepared for the zombie apocalypse? This came to mind when thinking about horses. The Amish (and the related groups) are used to living without electricity. That is good. They can live off the land. Again good thing. They can make their own butter. Excellent. Because they farm, they have lots of sharp pointy tools. If you have ever seen farm equipment up close, you’ll know there’s a cornucopia of implements and such that could be used for walker defense.

Yup. I want to see this movie. Witness meets Night of the Living Dead. Seriously, M. Night Shyamalan isn’t doing much, he could do it. It can’t be worse than Dead Snow. Well, maybe it could, but I’d still watch it.

2. Where are the improvised weapons? It seems like all of the survivors have either guns or knives. Even Michone has her signature katana. I get that, and those would be first choices if I was looking for a weapon. However, it seems like there would be any number of improvised weapons out there. Merle’s hand is great example of what I’m talking about. It just seems like after two years people would have developed unique methods of dispatching walkers that fit their own abilities and styles.

If they needed some ideas, they could visit Jorge Sprave’s Slingshot Channel on Youtube. This cool German dude has a mind for destruction. Almost all of his devices are built on rubber surgical tubing for power. What can you do with that you ask? You use a 1 inch ball bearing to take out a walker for sure. Not good enough, How bout an Gattling style gun that shoots toilet brushes with sharpened nails on the end. It’s these kind of things I would be looking for. Something that could use plentiful items for walker defense.

I’m actually surprised nobody has every used one of those Paslode Cordless framing nailers against a walker mob. (They had one on The Strain that shot silver nails.)

(Speaking of Michone’s katana, I still do not believe it is practical to draw that sword from her back. But that particular annoyance of mine is well documented elsewhere.)

3. Where are the mechanics? I saw the factoid recently that in the Walking Dead Universe, the dead out number the living 5000 to one. Right now, there are approximately 820 vehicles for for every 1000 people in the United States. This means there are 4100 cars for every survivor!

I find it hard to believe there aren’t some professional mechanics in the survivors we’ve seen so far. At least, I would expect some of them to have a B.A. Baracus level of vehicle skill and creativity. Just in the parking lot at work we probably have 4 or 5 Jeeps ready to go off roading. I just can’t believe that out of all of those vehicles there wasn’t one that couldn’t have been “upgraded” to a zombie killing survival machine.

I know. You are going to say dead batteries. Ever seen somebody pop a clutch to start a car? If they could get it started, the alternator should take over and recharge the battery.

4. Why were the military personnel so underwhelming? The Governor’s  guys took out a military unit pretty quickly. I find it a bit unlikely they did not have look outs in all directions and/or some sort of electronic perimeter. If we are to believe the world has descended into the amount of chaos shown, I would think a surviving Army unit would have learned to not trust the living or dead.

At least with what we saw at the CDC, it looked like the military died after defensive action. It stills seems like they would have kept falling back into the building and defend from inside. Should have been more soldiers alive in the building to me.

5. Why aren’t there larger family units? This show takes place in the US South.  In general, folks in the South tend to be well aware of their extended families. Families tend to do things together like picnics and reunions. In times of crisis, families tend to come together to support each other in my experience.

The show doesn’t really represent that. Hershel’s family was the largest family unit we’ve seen and it was only his immediate family. In reality, I would have expected there to be Aunts, Uncles, cousins and the kid that would come over every day after school. Sure in the city, you might not see this as much. For the most part though, this show has taken place in rural areas.

Mrs. Nerd and I have talked and in the event of a walker outbreak, we’re heading to be with our relatives in Kentucky. Safety in numbers, my Dad is handy building stuff, and everybody knows how to can and cook food. (You’d have food enough to survive, every time somebody dies food comes out of woodwork, so with all the walkers there would be years worth of casseroles in the deep freeze.

 

Essentially, I suspect the writers are city dwellers who have not spent a lot of time in rural areas. Or have ever heard the song A Country Boy Can Survive.-Engineernerd

 

(On a side note, I only used the Merle picture because I thought it looked cool. He didn’t annoy me.-E.N.)

Tags: AMC, Walking Dead

Category: Featured, Media Reviews, On TV