The Walking Dead's sixth season opener was a viscerally punishing statement of intent, ruined by one major flaw, writes Chris Schulz. (Warning: Story may contain spoilers)
A canyon full of groaning zombies, a gigantic truck crashing spectacularly off a cliff and Rick Grimes orchestrating a grand set piece like the pied piper of the undead.
As a statement of intent, The Walking Dead's sixth season premiere was one hell of a spectacle as zombies hordes crashed and bashed their way along a path created by Grimes, who was tasked with tackling his biggest zombie problem yet: leading the undead masses away from the safehaven Alexandria.
A scene from the sixth season opener of The Walking Dead.
The viscerally impressive opening served as a reward to the show's fans who have sat through some of the most interminable dialogue ever scripted in prime time television - and gave a serve to its sister show Fear the Walking Dead, which finished its run just last week.
"Oh yeah?" it seemed to say to the really rather good Cliff Curtis vehicle, which broke cable viewing records with its US debut.
"Well, check this out."
But for a show that proudly splashes litres of blood across our screens each week, The Walking Dead did something pretty silly last night: it delivered half the episode in black and white, and it actually ruined the episode
As a storytelling technique, it once again showed The Walking Dead treats its viewers like idiots. The episode switched between time zones, showing Grimes' zombie relocation plan in full technicolour, before switching to monochrome for a series of cheesy, mostly unnecessary, flashbacks.
Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes in the sixth season opener of The Walking Dead.
If a Dead producer is correct in saying it was a tribute to the show's roots as a black and white comic bookThe Walking Dead began deviating from the books around the time the TV show refused to cut Grimes' hand off. Like Game of Thrones, they are now different beasts created from the same source material.
A scene from the sixth season opener of The Walking Dead.
It's a crying shame, because this pulsating sixth season opener crafted some otherwise brilliantly vivid scenes, like anything involving the "walkers" who are now decaying so badly they're stumbling around as barely functioning skeletons with skin. Or Morgan's laugh-out-loud line about his missing peanut butter-flavoured protein bar. Who did steal it? That might be a mystery solved in episode two.
A scene from the sixth season opener of The Walking Dead.
But best of all was Glenn's reply when one of Alexandria's moaning residents complained that he wasn't cut out to deal with the bunch of decaying zombies about to descend on them.
"I'm supposed to be delivering pizzas, man," was Glenn's cutting reply. Like the rest of the episode, it would have been so much better had it been said in full colour.
