What The Walking Dead Needs to Learn From Dr. Who
Over the weekend, there were two shows that launched their new seasons with a promise towards a fresh start. The Walking Dead returned with the ponderous and painful battle against Negan finally in the rearview mirror and the promise that Rick Grimes would soon be ending his run. Dr. Who also launched a new season with a new doctor and a new cast of supporting characters (and writers and directors, it turns out). Both shows were signalling a change in the show’s direction. The Walking Dead is trying to alter course from a demoralizing pair of seasons and shakeup the show’s status quo. Dr. Who, a show that regularly resets it’s cast of characters (The Doctor tends to “regenerate” every few seasons with a new actor taking over the role), was also launching a new cycle and incorporating the series’ first female doctor. Of the two, Dr. Who clearly did a much better job making the transition and introduced the series most interesting Doctor in years. Meanwhile, The Walking Dead felt about as new and alive as the moaning, droning, eponymous characters.
Rick’s learned a lot about riding horses in the zombie apocalypse. Like, don’t ride directly into the zombie apocalypse.
I was a little worried about Dr. Who. I tend to think episodes of that show are just fine, neither memorable good (like The X-Files’ “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose”) or scornfully bad (like The X-Files “Home”). I was worried if the show was just alright but Jodie Whitaker took a while to find her groove then the first few episodes might be a little shaky. I needn’t have worried; the story was just fine and it was a perfectly serviceable episode of Dr. Who (made a little more timely by the recent Predator movie) but Whittaker was awesome. She elevated the material and made a decent episode really memorable. She was energetic, bold, vulnerable, caring, and clever. She was, really, everything I want in a Doctor, but – again – her performance was really mesmerizing. I was reminded me of Timothy Olyphant in Justified or Patrick Stewart on Star Trek in that her presence could make even the most traditional episode of the show interesting and fun to watch. The show evolved a bit too by giving the Doctor a family to protect rather than a single companion to accompany. I ended the episode dying to see where these characters would go next.
One thing that both shows have in common: fences never work.
The Walking Dead, meanwhile, was back to being as meandering and difficult to watch as it has been. I was hoping with the leap forward and other upcoming changes that we’d see the show revitalized with a new sense of purpose. The characters here, though, didn’t seem new and fresh, they seemed just as dim-witted as ever. Watching Rick and his crew cross a glass ceiling with a horde of zombies below, I felt that it was pretty obvious where this was going. When they returned with a ludicrously heavy wagon to heave over the same glass, it wasn’t so much a tense scene as comically ridiculous. Surely one of Rick’s crew has to anticipate what’s going to happen because it’s what always happens. Later Gregory tries to create some conflict in Hilltop in the most heavy-handed, obvious, and poorly-thought out way possible. He is literally less Machiavellian than one of the Walking Dead and his level of plotting here is on pair with Charlie Day’s character’s schemes on Always Sunny. Of course it goes wrong and thankfully the show ended this plot quickly, but this kind of unsophisticated, mustache twirling writing makes me think this season of The Walking Dead will be two things: overly dramatic and unfailingly predictable. It’s not that I don’t care what happens next as much as I think I already know.
Oh yeah, what could possibly go wrong here?
Of course, the biggest issue with The Walking Dead is that I don’t know how it will survive the upcoming (and undoubtedly saddening) loss of Rick Grimes. He must have had 90% of this episode’s dialogue, who is going to take his place? Carol? Darryl? Michonne? Meanwhile, Dr. Who has already switched to its new lead flawless and actually built some momentum for the show as it did so. This is the most interesting Doctor we’ve seen in years, while The Walking Dead still has the same old zombies (seriously, how are these zombies surviving on just walking and moaning?). Both shows air at 8pm on Sundays for me, and I’m sure I’ll keep watching both to see how these two shows handle their new seasons. But I’m positive about which one I’ll watch and which one I’ll record. I can’t wait to see more of Jodie Whittaker’s performance as The Doctor. Meanwhile, I can already tell you how next week’s The Walking Dead will go: characters will loudly scheme, very stupid choices will be made, and nothing is really going to change.
