It most certainly is! And as a die-hard fan of the comic, I've got to give it props on
two counts, seemingly contradictory.
On the one hand, they've done a great job (so far) capturing the confusion and fear of Rick's initial waking up, the sense of desolation of his early solo wanderings, and his general character (at this point in the story) despite not having a ton of dialogue to work with. What little we've seen of the other characters so far also impresses me for looking great in relation to the original artwork, so they certainly get a gold star for just general casting and costume design. A few of the camera shots were right out of the book -- the "money shot" to me is the loneliness of Rick riding into Atlanta on that horse on the big, empty, highway lanes that counter the chaos and terror of the clogged-by-dead-cars lanes leading out of the city, and is straight out of the comic -- and I think they're overall doing a great job of capturing the feel of the excellent, excellent, comics.
On the other hand, I like that they're not
chained to the comics. Lots of small stuff is different. The whole conversation between Rick and Shane didn't happen in the comics, for instance. The scene in the hospital stairwell was totally different on screen than it was in the comics. They're using the broad strokes from the outstanding comic series, but they're not necessarily doing a frame-by-frame slavishly loyal interpretation (which I sometimes like, as in
Watchmen, but sometimes don't) -- they're acknowledging the differences between the graphic novel and the television medium, they're acknowledging that the first issues of
Walking Dead were the
first issues (it's grown and gotten better, and so has the writing and the storytelling, in my opinion, since then)...and they're not scared to make a few changes to tell a different story on the silver screen than in the comic book. I can be as nitpicky a detail-oriented fan of the original series as anyone...but I can also kick back and relax and enjoy it when the producers mix things up a little, and change the story so long as they get the
essence of it right. I feel they're doing that, here.
To be honest, my biggest quibble with the opening of the show was the insistence that a cop with a Glock make sure his safety was off, and then him fumbling with the slide release (and sound editing adding a clicking sound) in order to make him follow directions. It's possible that their department had the budget to modify all their standard issue Glocks and add safeties in order to bend to some PC need for every gun to have a safety...but if they'd been the sort of county (in Kentucky, no less!) to be that anal about gun safety and issued firearms, they'd probably have made Rick carry one of their department guns instead of his cool .357 wheelgun. I'm just chalking that whole exchange up to someone in scripting not talking to someone in costuming not talking to someone in technical advising, and it's really not a big deal. I'm more mentioning it because it's really
all I found to gripe about, and when something that trivial is my biggest complaint, it tells ya that I like a show.
I loved it later in the episode, with the disorientation and ear-ringing that ensued from firing his wheelgun inside a heavily armored, confined, space. All too often Hollywood acts like ear damage is a myth and every gun's got nothing more to it than a few pop-pop-pops. The hearing issues towards the end of the episode
more than made up for the "safety" silliness early on.
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