Three Excellent Examples of Horror Anime: Another, Moryo no Hako, and Shiki

The face of madness revealed in Moryo no Hako.

As someone who lives in a country where animation is overwhelmingly aimed at children and general audiences, I'm fascinated by the amount of freedom that animation has over in Japan. In particular, I'm still amazed at how anime is used as a means of telling serious horror stories, something that you'll never find here in the U.S. In this post, I will look at three horror anime series--each of which are based on a novel--that are great examples of how hand-drawn monsters, murders and mysteries can chill the soul of even the most jaded horror fan. Read on ...

Title: Another

Year of Release: 2012

Number of Episodes: 12

Plot Summary: In 1998, teenager Koichi Sakakibara moves into a new town while his father is away teaching a college in India. When his fellow students begin to die under unusual and shocking circumstances, Koichi learns that his class at Yomiyama Middle School has fallen under a bizarre curse that has haunted the school since 1972. With the help of his friend Mei Misaki, he sets out to uncover the secret behind the curse before his entire class dies.

Comments: Another is kind of like a slasher story in the sense that almost all of the potential victims are teenagers. However, unlike most American slasher stories that characterize teenagers as sex-crazed, booze-binging jerks, the teenagers in Another are likable, hard-working and normal (for the most part). Even in cases where the teenagers are abusive towards each other, they are often doing it out of fear of the curse; understanding that the kids are just trying to make the best of a bad situation, trying to survive a curse that's as inexplicable as it is deadly, makes it easier to sympathize with them and thus adds to the shock every time the body count goes up--and boy howdy, does it go way, way up.

Some horror fans might be frustrated with the amorphous, elusive nature of the curse. While there are some inconsistencies in the curse's mechanics (i.e., who dies and how, who goes insane and who doesn't, etc.), I thought that curse's unpredictability made it so much more intimidating and added to Another's vivid, Gothic atmosphere of dread and disorientation.

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Title: Moryo no Hako (a.k.a. Box of Goblins)

Year of Release: 2008

Number of Episodes: 13

Plot Summary: In post World War II Japan, a failed attack against teenage girl at a train station serves as a prelude to a series of grisly murders involving severed body parts placed around the countryside in boxes.

Comments: Moryo no Hako is a brilliant mashup of pulp mystery, sci-fi and occult horror. Both stylish and well-written, it travels through a wide variety of subjects--extortion, demonic possession, transhumanism, religion, ancient folklore and so on--as it tells a story about killer's obsession with perfection and immortality. Curiously, Moryo no Hako approaches the familiar plot device of "mad science" from a unique perspective. Usually, the term "mad science" is shorthand for destructive scientific research that has run amuck or has originated from a mind of questionable sanity; in Moryo no Hako, we see a science that is so ghastly and morally bankrupt that it has the capability of pushing people to madness--even people who appear outwardly rational.

Of the anime series listed in this post, Moryo no Hako is most demanding of its viewers. Some segments are shown out of sequential order, so you'll see many things in the early episodes that won't makes sense until you get closer to the end. Furthermore, for as grotesque and depraved as this series can get, many of the episodes are thick in dialog exchanges, something that may bore some horror fans. However, this is neither pointless discussion nor exposition-heavy posturing; the dialog is loaded with crucial detail and each segment contributes something interesting and essential to the mystery. Between the out-of-sequence snippets and well-scripted dialog, watching the numerous threads of Moryo no Hako coalescing into a final revelation is like watching a flower slowly unfolding, petal by petal, into a disturbed, perverse blossom.

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Title: Shiki

Year of Release: 2010

Number of Episodes: 24 (22 in the original broadcast, with an additional 2 as part of a subsequent video release)

Plot Summary: During a hot summer in the '90s, a small town in a remote part of Japan named Sotoba comes under attack by a family of vampires.

Comments: Based on the plot summary, Shiki sounds like anime's answer to Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot. While that's not an entirely inaccurate assumption, there's more to Shiki than that--much, much more.

Between its large cast of distinct characters, a well-paced narrative, and soulful commentary on the nature life and death--as well as what it means to be forsaken and what it means to be free--Shiki is a top-notch terror yarn that most vampire fans will enjoy. Even though some of the story is told from the vampires' perspective, these vampires are monsters, both deliberate and unintentional, with no attempt to romanticize them (Twilight this isn’t). Furthermore, killing the Shiki vampires is not a quick, simple task where the undead suddenly turn to ash; no, the staking, beheading and sun exposure of these vamps involves plenty of effort and buckets upon buckets of blood.

Network Television was Better Off with Better Off Ted

I have to give Netflix credit: Because of its wide selection of television titles, it’s a great resource for me to find high-quality but short-lived series that somehow escaped my attention when they were originally aired. (This is a welcome change from most television syndication arrangements, where only popular shows are aired repeatedly on channels other than the one that originally aired them.) In fact, it was thanks to Netflix that I found Better Off Ted, a wickedly intelligent satire of corporate culture that aired for two 13 episode seasons on ABC from 2009 to 2010.

Better Off Ted is a half-hour sitcom that takes place in the offices of Veridian Dynamics, a monolithic mega-corporation that engages in all sorts of odd and amoral activities to increase worker productivity and maximize profits, often at the expense of everyone and everything else. The characters consist of the titular Ted Crisp (Jay Harrington), a single father who heads Veridian’s research and development department; Ted’s intimidating, hyper-competitive boss Veronica Palmer (Portia de Rossi); and Ted’s underlings, product tester Linda Zwordling (Andrea Anders) and product development scientists Phil Myman (Jonathan Slavin) and Lem Hewitt (Malcolm Barrett).

While the interplay among the characters provide the plots for the episodes, most of the jokes in Better Off Ted are targeted directly at the behavior of modern-day corporations and their approach to people and science--or, as Lem puts it in one episode, “the place science goes to bend over and grab its ankles”. Throughout the series, various Veridian products become the subject of absurd and dark humor, such as its revolutionary cure for baldness (that is also a parasite) and a sound device that can deliver messages straight into a person’s brain (and can also cause uncontrollable, explosive vomiting when set at high frequencies). In a way, Veridian is less openly violent but just as misanthropic as Omni Consumer Products, the devious military-industrial conglomerate in Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop. Indeed, notorious mad scientists such as Frankenstein, Jekyll and Moreau would feel right at home in the laboratories of Veridian Dynamics.

I love Better Off Ted and if you love comedy that is smart, sinister and strange, then you should check it out too.

Mental Health Care Runs Amuck in Psycho-Pass Anime Series

One of the best things about Japanese anime is that as a means of storytelling, it is not limited to specific areas of subject matter. Whereas most American animation is usually limited to kid-friendly material, anime can be applied to just about any genre (drama, romance, horror, etc.). Thus, when I heard about the anime Psycho-Pass, a hard-boiled cyberpunk crime thriller series that spans 22 half-hour episodes, I just had to see it for myself. I'm glad I did--it's one of the smartest sci-fi shows I've ever seen.

The overall plot of Psycho-Pass will sound familiar to anyone who frequents the crime thriller genre: a group of law enforcement officers who are in search of an elusive suspect who is connected to a series of brutal, gruesome crimes. Yet where Psycho-Pass differs greatly from other crime thrillers is in its setting, a futuristic Japan that is constantly monitored by an omnipresent computer network called the Sybil System. Such a setting puts a unique spin on standard crime thriller character types and conventions, resulting in a challenging and engaging narrative that sci-fi fans will relish.

It is difficult to describe Psycho-Pass without explaining the rules of the world in which it takes place:

* Each Japanese citizen has a "Psycho-Pass", a psychological profile that is routinely read by the Sibyl System. If a citizen's "Crime Coefficient" (a particular value within a Psycho-Pass) rises to a certain level, the Sibyl System will require that citizen to get state-approved psychiatric counseling to lower the Crime Coefficient. If the citizen refuses counseling and/or his Crime Coefficient stays at a high level, he will be identified as a "Latent Criminal" and face a life sentence of institutionalization.

* A person's Crime Coefficient can rise due to stress, anger and trauma, so citizens are strongly encouraged by the state to avoid situations where such emotions can be triggered. For example, artists (musicians, writers, sculptors, etc.) are required to get a state license to prove that their work does not cause the Crime Coefficients of their spectators to increase. Unfortunately, even though the Crime Coefficient is a measurement value that was devised to predict and deter criminal activity, victims of violent crime can also become identified as Latent Criminals due to the trauma they experienced at the hands of criminals.

* Law enforcement duties are divided between two classes of officer: Inspectors and Enforcers. Enforcers are Latent Criminals who show an aptitude for law enforcement work and are tasked with the violent and stressful aspects of law enforcement. Enforcers have more freedom than other Latent Criminals (such as their own living quarters and permission to visit the outside world with the accompaniment of an Inspector) but they are still held in low regard by the general populace; characters frequently refer to Enforcers as nothing more than "hunting dogs" for the Inspectors. It is also not uncommon for an occasional Inspector to be downgraded to an Enforcer.

Psycho-Pass reminds me of other sci-fi TV shows such as Dollhouse and Orphan Black in that it centers on an advanced form of technology and then uses a series of episodes to examine the daily lives of the people who are most immediately impacted by it. As such, Psycho-Pass poses many thought-provoking questions about the relationship between society, law and technology. In particular, it frequently ponders whether it is more important to have a society that is truly just or a society that is successful at convincing its citizenry that it is just. If this is your kind of science fiction, then I can't recommend Psycho-Pass highly enough.

DC and Marvel Superhero Cartoon Report Card, Fall 2013 Edition

Last fall, I did a report card post about the DC and Marvel superhero cartoons on Cartoon Network and Disney XD. Since almost all of the cartoons from last year have been replaced with new cartoons (Ultimate Spider-Man is the only one that's still on the air), I think that now would be a good time to take a look at where things stand for animated DC and Marvel titles and how they reflect larger expansion plans to push both classic and obscure superhero characters from the comics onto multiple media platforms. Read on ...

Comic Book Company: DC

Channel: Cartoon Network

Cartoon Series: Beware the Batman, Teen Titans Go

Considering what has come before on Cartoon Network's DC Nation block, the CGI animated Beware the Batman and the revamped Teen Titans Go feel like significant steps downward in terms of quality. Of the two shows, Beware the Batman is the better cartoon and it has come a long way since its stiff first episode. Once Batman accepted the character of Katana as his partner in crime fighting, the show's narrative pace has improved; in fact, the banter between Batman and Katana keeps the show interesting even when the episodes themselves are not.

Despite its flashy look and fluid animation, the new Batman cartoon doesn't come near the same level of quality as previous cartoons such as Batman: The Animated Series and Batman: Brave and the Bold. The overarching plot thread that ties the episodes together isn't engaging, and the villains are either uninspired retreads of classic Batman villains or just simply bland in their own right. Take Lady Shiva and her League of Assassins, for example: They could be pulled from Gotham City and dropped into any Z grade kung fu movie without missing a beat, which just goes to show how much personality they lack.

I think that the current programming selection in the DC Nation block reflects Time Warner's current strategy of playing it safe with its DC properties. The previous attempt to make Green Lantern a blockbuster character through a live-action movie and a CGI animated series didn't work out the way it was planned, so it seems that Time Warner would rather stick with bankable characters (such as Batman) and previously successful cartoons (such as Teen Titans) instead of focusing time and resources on exploring and adapting other characters and stories within the vast DC universe. Furthermore, with the current buzz over the next Superman movie being devoted to who will play Batman next--not which Superman villain or supporting character will appear next or who will play them--I don't have much faith in future DC media projects.

Overall Grade: C+, for average to below average programming and heavy dependency on characters that we've seen too many times before.

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Comic Book Company: Marvel

Channel: Disney XD

Cartoon Series: Avengers Assemble, Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H, Ultimate Spider-Man

In comparison to what DC is doing, Marvel has a much better and more comprehensive media plan, a plan to produce a series of movies, cartoons and live-action TV shows that can build upon each other and thus help grow the Marvel fan base. That said, it seems that the cartoons in this plan got the short end of the deal. Sure, Avengers Assemble and Ultimate Spider-Man have gotten better over time, but they still lack multi-episode story arcs, character development, and plot contributions from the original comic books; in other words, the current Marvel cartoons don't measure up to other Marvel cartoons that have come before them (i.e., The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes and Spectacular Spider-Man). The latest member of the Disney XD Marvel lineup, Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H, is currently going through the same growing pains that the other two Marvel cartoons did and I also expect it to become better but not great, for the exact same reasons why the other two cartoons are above average but little more.

I grew up with superhero cartoons such as Super Friends and Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, so I understand what kind of superhero cartoons that Marvel wants to make now: the kind that provide to young viewers a basic introduction to a selection of superheroes and their universe in the hopes that these impressionable media consumers will become avid fans who compulsively buy superhero merchandise and loyally read superhero comic books. In that regard, the Disney XD Marvel cartoons are quite good at doing what they do (heck, they're much better than the superhero cartoons that I grew up with during the 70s and 80s). Unfortunately, if you're a long-time Marvel fan who is looking for faithful animated adaptations of classic characters and stories from the comic books, the current Disney XD cartoons will leave you underwhelmed.

Overall Grade: B+, for Marvel character diversity and opportunities for media growth.

Goodbye, Bay Harbor Butcher: A Look Back at Dexter (2006 - 2013)

I remember reading a quote from Alfred Hitchcock a while back, although I can't find the exact source from where it originated. It was during an interview, and Hitchcock was asked about how to evoke an audience's sympathy for an anti-hero such as a criminal. He said that to have a sympathetic anti-hero, he can't just be what's normally thought of as a "bad guy"; he has to be the best at whatever vice he practices (e.g., bank robbery, art theft, high-profile assassinations, etc.) and, as long as he is portrayed by a handsome and charming actor, audiences will cheer the anti-hero along as long as he strives to maintain his reputation as the best. Hitchcock recognized that it's human nature to support hard work and success and his approach to anti-heroes proved that under the right circumstances, this support can be twisted around to cheer on theft, violence, excessive bloodshed, and death. Thus, while petty thieves, impoverished drug dealers and second-rate henchmen are the stuff of bit parts and small tragic dramas, expertly-trained assassins, international diamond thieves and rogue police officers who break all the rules to get the job done are romanticized and revered as superstars within the annals of pulp crime and suspense thrillers.

By that rationale, the TV series Dexter, which recently ended its eight season run on Showtime last weekend, gleefully pushed Hitchcock's approach to anti-heroes into the darkest and craziest corners of the horror genre. Charmingly played by Michael C. Hall, the titular character of Dexter Morgan built an audience of sympathetic viewers and impressed TV critics as he hacked and slashed his way through the criminal underbelly of Miami. Even though this plot summary sounds like the stuff of low-budget grindhouse horror, the creators of the series built enough twists into Dexter, his story and his supporting cast to make him approachable and even likable--likable enough that many fans were angered over how he didn't have a happily-ever-after ending, regardless of the fact that Dexter never stopped being a monster during the entirety of the series. Somewhere out there, Hitchcock is smiling from ear to ear.

Read on for my review of Dexter, and why I think that it's the boldest horror TV show to date. (Warning: There are many spoilers in this post.)

Dexter is a shamelessly manipulative show. Sure, it has plenty of plot contrivances to explain how Dexter gets both in and out of certain situations, but it is at its most manipulative in its central premise. The series begins with Dexter in his mid-thirties, which indicates that he's been successfully pulling the wool over Miami Metro Police Department's collective eyes for a very long time before the first episode begins. Furthermore, the show emphasizes Dexter's rigorous adherence to "The Code", a code of behavior that was taught to him by his adopted police officer Harry Morgan (James Remar), a code that stresses that only guilty people deserve to die. (Even though Harry is dead during the series, he appears frequently in the mind of Dexter to remind him of how important The Code is.)

By setting him up as a vigilante who "cleans up" the messes that the flawed legal system leaves behind (i.e., violent criminals who are obviously guilty but don't go to jail due to glitches in the system), Dexter does things that make him sympathetic in the eyes of viewers and even other characters within the show. Like any other serial killer, Dexter knows how to stalk human prey, set up portable "kill rooms", and successfully dispose of bodies; yet because he deliberately kills people who are a) guilty, b) let go by law enforcement due to technicalities, and c) cannot hurt anyone else after they die, audiences can appreciate Dexter's expertise in vigilante justice--even if Dexter's actions are motivated by a bloodlust for murder and not a desire for justice. (Think back to the character of Harry Tasker in True Lies: He's killed many people, "but they were all bad.")

Stories need to have an appealing lead character to build audience support; if the story is told in the form of a serialized TV narrative, then the audience support has to be maintained during the course of the series in order to keep the ratings high. To put Dexter into the context of Hitchcock's anti-hero type, Dexter Morgan's appeal at the beginning of the series largely stems from the fact that he's the best at what he does (e.g., he amassed a sizable body count while working for the Miami Metro Police Department but has neither been suspected nor caught in the act) and he produces outcomes with which most audiences would sympathize if not completely support. As with most TV dramas that center around a flawed lead character, audiences have come to expect the character to seek some sort of redemption as part of his or her development as the series progresses. In the case of Dexter, the show portrays Dexter as a man who was severely damaged psychologically at a very young age and is trying to grow into something more like a normal human being; since he is already the best serial killer he can be, the audience reaction (as Hitchcock anticipated) is to cheer him on in his efforts to become something more than that. But since Dexter is essentially a horror show about a man who is a monster that hides in plain sight, things aren't so simple.

Even though articles and critics have lumped it together with other dark, violent cable TV dramas such as The Sopranos and Breaking Bad, Dexter is a dramatic horror show and not a horrific drama series. I say this because of its close formulaic similarities to other horror TV series. Whether you're talking about Kolchak: The Night Stalker, The X-Files or Supernatural, the usual premise of a horror TV show involves characters balancing their lives between mundane, everyday reality and a parallel, coexisting reality that is populated by murderous, terrifying monsters. Dexter also bears similarities to horror shows such as Forever Knight, Angel and Moonlight where the protagonist is a monster who is looking for redemption by not killing innocent people and striving to become human.

The key differences between Dexter and other horror TV series are 1) all of the monsters are human (not a single extraterrestrial or paranormal entity in the bunch) and 2) not only is the lead character a monster, but he never stops being a monster and it's doubtful that he genuinely understands the difference between "being normal" and having a conscience. That's the running morbid joke behind Dexter Morgan: He frequently ponders the idea of what it means to be a regular human being--having a spouse and children, maintaining a job and close friendships, etc.--but in his eyes, being normal never completely equates to being sane.

Hitchcock's model of the anti-hero aside, I think that Dexter Morgan's antecedent is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the sizable horror subgenre of interpretations and reimagining that have followed it. Since the first season, I saw many similarities behind Dexter and Frankenstein's monster in that both were made to appear and behave human, but the flawed intentions and questionable methodology behind their creation inevitably leads to tragedy and death. In a sense, Dexter is the equal and opposite of Data, the android from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Star Trek and its spinoffs regularly used non-human characters to explore different aspects of what it means to be human; in the case of Data, he's an android who sees humanity as a standard to emulate and thus attempts to do things that humans would do (e.g., tell jokes, play music, go on dates, take care of a pet, have a child, etc.) but from a different, mechanical perspective. No matter how often he fails at being human due to his inherent limitations as a non-organic being, he continues to strive for human-ness and the Next Generation narrative regards his endeavor as a commendable one. Dexter also seeks to better understand what it means to be a normal human being, but he does so with the intent of finding better ways to accommodate his murderous tendencies; he's the serial killer who, as the saying goes, "wants to have it all". On the other hand, Dexter would have a kindred spirit in Cameron, the cyborg assassin from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. No matter how much both of these characters would like to appear and feel human, they can't get past the immutable fact that they were built (one literally, the other figuratively) to infiltrate groups of people and kill, kill, kill.

To follow the show's overarching logic, Dexter began violating The Code when he started to take a personal interest in the villains he hunts and aimed to incorporate aspects of his public life into his serial killer life in order to be a more complete human being. This began in the first season when he learned that the Ice Truck Killer (Christian Camargo) was his own biological brother, and then continued to spiral out of control in the subsequent seasons. In season 3, he created a killer in Miguel Prado (Jimmy Smits) when trying to find a close friend who could truly understand him; in season 4, his attempt to understand how to balance serial murder with family life by closely observing and directly interacting with the Trinity Killer (John Lithgow) wound up tearing Dexter's own family apart. With each attempt to improve himself through the interaction with other killers, more innocent people wound up dead--Doakes (Erik King), Ellen Wolf (Anne Ramsay), Rita (Julie Benz), LaGuerta (Lauren Vélez), and so on--and that is an unmistakable violation of The Code, even if these violations were not committed by Dexter's own hand.

The appearance in season 8 of Dr. Evelyn Vogel (Charlotte Rampling), the original creator of The Code, emphasizes the point that the series has been hinting at the entire time: that if Dexter had accepted his identity as a serial killer and behaved according to the stipulations of The Code, he could have spent the rest of his days as, as Vogel put it, "the perfect serial killer". Then again, by seeing how Dexter tried to change his modus operandi to become more normal during the series, it could be argued that the success of The Code was what led Dexter into thinking that he could eventually be something more than a serial killer of criminals. It's a very "meta" situation: a code of behavior that's designed to help an insane man remain free in a sane world also leads the man into believing that he can actually be sane while still doing insane things.

Each of these details surrounding Dexter ultimately led up to his grand epiphany in the final episode: to be truly human is to experience the need for redemption after committing horrible acts. Redemption only comes through a sense of remorse, remorse deep enough to spur meaningful and lasting acts of contrition. Dexter has felt guilt and regret from time to time, but none of those instances lasted. Take the recurring presence of Harry, for example: Even after learning that his adopted father committed suicide after witnessing the monster he created, Dexter still kept Harry as the spiritual face of The Code without a hint of remorse about his role in Harry's death. Perhaps his most misguided and twisted attempt at balancing normalcy and insanity happened after his sister Deb (Jennifer Carpenter) learned of his serial killing, and he did everything he could to get her to accept what he is. The end result left Deb an emotional and morally-compromised wreck, all so that Dexter could maintain a relationship with his sister without having to go to jail or be held accountable for his crimes in any way. His actions ultimately led up to his mercy killing of Deb in the hospital in the show's finale, although you could argue that he's been slowly killing Deb during the last two seasons anyway.

It may seem anti-climactic, but Dexter's realization in the last episode that he has never stopped being a monster to anyone, even the people who he believed he loved, is a significant and powerful conclusion to a show like Dexter. Unfortunately, for Dexter to finally understand the idea of remorse--no matter how briefly, and after eight gruesome seasons--was not fully grasped by everyone. As far as Salon's Daniel D'Addario is concerned, "[Dexter's] recent conclusion seemed plucked from the clear blue sky -- Dexter ran off to become a lumberjack, unpunished and abandoning his family." (To go back to the Frankenstein analogy, I think that the series ending with Dexter sailing out to sea into a hurricane with his dead sister Deb bears strong similarities to the ending of Shelley's novel, where the grieving monster drifts into the Arctic waters after seeing his creator's broken, dead body.)

Dexter isn't the perfect series. It had plenty of subplots that meander and go nowhere, as well as characters making decisions that strain credibility. I'm particularly disappointed that we didn't get to spend more time with Zach Hamilton (Sam Underwood), Dexter's "apprentice", and with Vogel. Even though it is indicated later that Vogel devised The Code for Dexter as a way of compensating for her own serial killer son Daniel (Darri Ingolfsson), it's also indicated that she spent at least 25 years experimenting with the idea of turning serial killers into "productive" members of society. I would have loved to have learned more about how her experiments and their underlying ideology evolved over time, as well as how many other Dexters she tried to create.

What Dexter did is difficult to accomplish, largely because most audiences and critics won't anticipate or understand what the show's creators and writers have done or why they did it in the first place. For example, as stated in the series finale recap by James Hibberd in Entertainment Weekly, "The past few seasons it's felt like the writers still think Dexter is a sympathetic hero whose needs are more important than any other character's despite the innocent people who have died along the way to support his addiction." No, the writers never thought that Dexter was a sympathetic character; they just applied Hitchcock's anti-hero philosophy to a very sinister scenario for eight seasons with high ratings, an avid fan base, and critical accolades. If that sounds crazy to you, it’s because it really is crazy--the cast and crew behind Dexter wouldn't had have it any other way.

Beware the Batman Debuts on Cartoon Network

Last weekend was the premiere of Beware the Batman, the latest animated series about Batman that airs as part of Cartoon Network's DC Nation hour. It's the second DC superhero series to exclusively use CG animation, with the first being the recently cancelled Green Lantern.

When Beware the Batman was first announced by Cartoon Network, two details were emphasized: 1) that the supporting cast would include DC C-list heroine Katana and a revamped version of Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne's butler; and 2) that the villains in the series would consist of newer and more obscure members of Batman's rogues gallery instead of classic and familiar foes such as the Joker, Mr. Freeze and Two-Face.

So, how does Beware the Batman fare with its interpretation of the Caped Crusader? The premiere episode is a mixed bag, with some signs of potential and a few nagging problems. Read on for my complete review.

The best thing that Beware the Batman has in its favor is the CG animation. In terms of visuals, this series has style to spare, and the CG format allows for spectacular action scenes. If this series delivers nothing else in the long run, it'll at least provide many sleek and well-choreographed adventures for die-hard DC fans. I also noticed that Batman's suit has a dull shimmer to it, which reminded me of the sculpted foam rubber suits used in the Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher Batman movies.

The changes the series makes to Batman's supporting characters come off much better than many fans had originally feared. The Alfred in Beware the Batman is the burliest Alfred I've ever seen in a Batman story: with his imposing figure, square jaw and seasoned fighting skills, it seems like this Alfred could easily don the Bat cape and cowl in situations when Bruce can't do it himself. The pilot episode also emphasizes Alfred's connections to Britain's MI-6 agency, which is how Katana enters the narrative and it sets up a theme of international intrigue to contrast Batman's Gotham-based activities.

Where the pilot episode falters is in its characterizations of key characters. The villains in the pilot consist of Professor Pyg and his henchman Mr. Toad, characters who were created by Grant Morrison during his recent run on the Batman comic book series. Essentially, Pyg is a much more psychotic version of the classic Batman villain Mad Hatter. However, because Beware the Batman is on the Cartoon Network, Pyg's character has been toned down considerably and his more deranged attributes have been replaced with personality traits similar to those of the Riddler and Poison Ivy. The end result makes Pyg feel like just another unexceptional Gotham villain who has animal and literature fetishes, and Toad is even less defined than Pyg. If all of the villains in this series are going to be as diluted as Pyg and Toad, then Beware the Batman could become just as forgettable as they are.

Another drawback to the pilot is that the main character of Bruce Wayne is as stiff as a plank of wood. Once he takes off the Bat suit, his personality disappears with it. I'm hoping that Bruce grows as a character as the series progresses, and I suspect that the creators of the series brought in Katana as a way of developing Bruce--namely, by pairing him with a fighter who is just as skilled as he is so he has someone to whom he can directly relate.

It's hard to gauge how Beware the Batman will fare as a series based only on its first episode, but I think that the pilot provides clear indicators as to how it will succeed or fail as a whole. Right now, I’m not sure if it will have compelling multi-episode story arcs that made its DC Nation predecessors Green Lantern and Young Justice stand out from other superhero cartoons. I also don't understand the logic of pairing it in the same hour with Teen Titans Go!, another DC Nation cartoon that's aimed at a much younger audience.

Cartoon criticisms aside, I'm beginning to wonder if Batman is reaching a point of oversaturation. The DC universe consists of so many characters and settings, and yet DC's parent company Time Warner keeps going back to Batman as if he's the only worthwhile character that DC has to offer. From 1989 to the present, Batman has been the subject of seven live-action movies, the main character in four animated TV series and a supporting character in three, and has dozens of video games and straight-to-video cartoons with his name on them. Sure, Beware the Batman could turn out to be one of the best Batman cartoons ever made, but there's no reason why an equally impressive CG series couldn't be made for Superman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, or Martian Manhunter. We've already been through Batman Returns, Batman Forever and Batman Begins; if Time Warner doesn't devise a better strategy of what to do with the DC universe, then all we're going to left with is stuff like Batman Again, Batman One More Time, and Nothing But Batman.

Bon Appétit: A Season One Review of NBC’s Hannibal

This review may be a bit late--the season finale of Hannibal aired last week--but I’m going to do this anyway. It’s not often when a horror TV show succeeds in being consistently creepy during an entire season, and Hannibal does so with flying, blood-spattered colors. It also breathes disturbing new life into the character of Dr. Hannibal Lecter, which is an impressive feat unto itself. Connections to Thomas Harris’ horror novels aside, Hannibal is what TV shows like The Following and Criminal Minds should be, and what earlier shows such as Millennium and Profiler could have been.

Instead of treating serial killers as monster-of-the-week antagonists who are quickly foiled at the end of each episode, Hannibal uses its main characters--namely Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) and Will Graham (Hugh Dancy)--to explore serial murder and the nature of identity and insanity on a more complex and nuanced level. In doing so, the series depicts Lecter in a manner similar to Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) in Dexter and Jim Profit (Adrian Pasdar) in Profit. These are depictions of murderous protagonists who go about their lives across days, weeks and months, allowing audiences to observe how such insanity can remain undetected (or at least unproven, from a legal perspective) by the killers’ peers in what would otherwise appear to be mundane settings and situations. There are no quick resolutions or sudden revelations in Hannibal; each murder and subsequent investigation leads to more murders and investigations, with the characters unaware of the central evil that ties it all together. It’s unnerving stuff.

As the series’ creator, executive producer and occasional script writer, Bryan Fuller has done an amazing job at bringing Harris’ stories to life on the small screen. Even though the 1991 film adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs popularized Hannibal Lecter among a wide audience, I think that Fuller’s Hannibal, which is mostly based on characters and situations from the 1981 novel Red Dragon, is the most intriguing and disturbing adaptation of Harris’ work. Not only do the scripts create a vivid, multi-layered world of characters, but the show’s direction maintains a grim, foreboding mood across the entire season, so much so that it almost feels like an ongoing miniseries instead of a sequence of individually produced episodes.

For as strong as the cast of Hannibal is, the series would have fallen apart without its two leads, Mikkelsen and Dancy. Mikkelsen’s interpretation of Lecter is a chilling one, without an ounce of camp that came to be associated with the character in his silver screen outings. Mikkelsen combines an outward appearance of resolute sanity and cultural sophistication with an aura of icy aloofness, making this version of Lecter impossible to completely understand and predict. Dancy provides the dramatic counterpoint to Mikkelsen’s Lecter, infusing the character of Will Graham with a burgeoning emotional imbalance that’s the side effect of his ability to “see” murders through the eyes of the serial killers who commit them. The cat-and-mouse game between Graham and Lecter is largely subliminal for most of the season, and Mikkelsen and Dancy’s performances keep it moving along with the right amounts of tension and symmetry until the season’s intense finale.

For as gruesome as it can be (a totem pole made from human body parts, murder victims transformed into musical instruments, etc.), I’m still surprised that Hannibal is on NBC and not on Showtime or some other cable channel. Regardless, I’m glad this show is on at all and will be coming back for a second season next year. This is what horror television should be, and I can’t wait to see where it goes next.

Who's up for a game of Jenga?

BBC's Orphan Black Sends in the Clones

Thank goodness for modern cable TV, because I wouldn't know what to do without BBC. First, it broadcast the amazing three-part zombie miniseries In the Flesh, and last weekend it finished its run of the first ten episode season of Orphan Black. A title like Orphan Black sounds like some kind of anime or manga series (you know, something like Perfect Blue or Death Note), but it's not. It's a sci-fi TV show about a covert experiment in cloning, as told from the clones' perspective.

Orphan Black opens in Toronto with a young woman named Sarah (Tatiana Maslany) who is trying to escape her poor, drug-fueled life and regain custody of her daughter Kira (Skyler Wexler). Sarah was adopted when she was an infant, and her only close friend is her foster brother Felix (Jordan Gavaris). One day, Sarah is waiting at a metro station when a woman who looks exactly like commits suicide by throwing herself in front of an oncoming train. Seizing the opportunity, Sarah decides to assume the identity of the woman, whose name is Beth, as part of a plan to fake her own death and run off with Kira. However, her plan becomes much more complicated when she learns that Beth is not some random look-alike but an actual clone of Sarah--one of a total of nine clones who are dying one by one at the hands of an unknown assassin.

Created by John Fawcett and Graeme Manson, Orphan Black takes the well-worn sci-fi trope of cloning to produce a crackerjack story populated by unexpected plot twists and a large cast of engaging characters. The series begins with a clever hook--a woman who plans to commit identity theft winds up discovering that her own identity was stolen before she was born--and it keeps building on itself in each successive episode until the intense season cliffhanger. It also asks a few provocative questions about the morality of genetic engineering and body modification, and it examines the dangerous intersections of scientific research with absolutist ideology and short-sighted, egocentric pundits who are heralded as "visionaries".

In comparison to other TV series, Orphan Black often reminded me of Joss Whedon's Dollhouse in that it has a main actress who is tasked with playing multiple roles, as well as its depiction of people who appear to be ordinary on the surface but are in fact being ruthlessly exploited by a sinister, clandestine technology. It also made me think of all the sci-fi shows that have used clones as a minor story arc or single episode plot (shows like Star Trek and The X-Files) without exploring the full range of narrative possibilities that clones and cloning can provide.

Of course, simply populating a sci-fi TV show with clones isn't enough to make it good. Orphan Black would have been a much lesser story if the writers did not develop the clones as individual characters or it cast an actress of limited range to portray all of them. Thankfully, the scripts give each of the clones a distinct personality and Maslany brings each of them to life through nuanced performances and seamless composite shots. The scenes where Maslany has to play against herself--or against herself and herself--are very convincing and add so much to the show's drama and suspense. Each clone reacts differently to what is happening, and the show follows each reaction to its logical and unique conclusion.

If you love intrigue, surprises and dark humor in your sci-fi, Orphan Black is a show for you. I don't know how much longer it can keep up its current level of quality, but I'm definitely going to turn in for the second season to find out. Click here to visit the official BBC Orphan Black page.

Avengers Assemble Arrives on Disney XD

Last weekend saw the debut of Avengers Assemble on Disney XD, with a two-part pilot episode. This is the second Avengers cartoon to air on Disney XD, the other one being The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes that ran for two seasons. So how does the new Avengers series hold up? It's too soon to tell about Assemble's overall quality as a series, but here are some initial thoughts about the pilot episode and some speculation about where the cartoon might go in the future.

The Good: Regardless of whatever else I thought about the pilot, it's nice to see the Avengers back on TV. Other superhero teams have made repeated appearances on TV throughout the years (particularly the Justice League and the X-Men), so I'm glad that Marvel's team of A-list superheroes is getting a second chance.

The Bad: The two-part Assemble pilot is a jumbled mess. It features not just one but two attacks by the Red Skull against the Avengers: first, he kidnaps Captain America in an attempt to swap bodies with him, and then he infects the Avengers with mind-controlling nanobots for the purpose of distracting them so that he can destroy the Avengers Mansion and the rest of New York along with it. Between these attacks and the subplot of Iron Man's mission to reassemble the Avengers team of Black Widow, Captain America, Hawkeye and Hulk, the pilot episode tries to cram far too much into so little time. Yes, the pilot is supposed to establish the Avengers as a team and the Red Skull as their main adversary, but it could have done so in a much better way. (Fun Marvel cartoon trivia: The previous Red Skull's plan to swap bodies with Captain America was seen in "The Capture of Captain America", an episode of the syndicated Spider-Man cartoon from the early 80s.)

Another problem with the pilot is its emphasis that it is a continuation of sorts--that the Avengers were a team that disbanded before the pilot--but then it doesn't commit to what exactly Assemble is continuing. Given the team's lineup and settings, the new Avengers cartoon is obviously meant to capitalize on the popularity of the live-action Avengers film from last summer; however, since this series isn't the official sequel to that movie, it tries to be vague enough so that it could also be interpreted as a continuation of the previous Avengers cartoon. In short, Assemble wants to have it both ways but it can't and because of that, the reassembled team lacks chemistry. (While watching the pilot, I found myself sorely missing Black Panther and Wasp from Earth's Mightiest Heroes.) The Assemble team will hopefully find its rhythm soon, but it's hard for any cast of characters to recapture a sense of camaraderie when they can't identify what kind of camaraderie they had in the first place. That said, Falcon has been added to the team's roster, but he's given so little to do in the pilot that it's hard to tell how well he'll fit in with the rest of the characters as the series progresses.

The Intriguing: Judging from the pilot's voice cast, it appears that Marvel is lining up its animation style and voice talent for possible crossovers between Assemble and Disney XD's other Marvel cartoons, Ultimate Spider-Man and the upcoming Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. Not only are the character designs identical between Ultimate and Assemble, but the voice cast for the characters of Captain America, Hawkeye, Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Nick Fury and J. Jonah Jameson is the same for both shows. I'm hoping that Marvel and its parent company Disney is doing this with the intent of producing an epic Ultimate/Assemble/S.M.A.S.H. crossover miniseries--they'd be foolish not to--but only time will tell.

The Following Season One Review

It's over--for now. The Following, Fox's attempt at the kind of serialized horror that has proven to be successful on cable TV with shows such as Dexter, The Walking Dead and American Horror Story, wrapped up its first 15 episode season last Monday. I love horror, so I can't fault a major network for trying to bring new horror TV shows to prime time. However, after a strong start, a great cast and some intriguing ideas, The Following sputtered to the end of its initial run with a lot of sound and fury that signified very little. Read on for my complete review of this show's freshman season.

For those of you who haven't seen The Following yet, it's about a college literature professor-turned-serial killer Joe Carroll (James Purefoy) and the FBI agent who caught him, Ryan Hardy (Kevin Bacon). The series begins with Carroll escaping from prison and the FBI bringing Hardy in to capture him again. Yet after Carroll is brought back into custody, Hardy and the FBI discover that Carroll has been using his years in prison to build a cult of devoted followers from around the country to do his bidding. The cult is rooted in Carroll's twisted interpretations of the writings of Edgar Allen Poe, and its members are determined to carry out a sinister master plan that involves Hardy and Carroll's ex-wife, Dr. Claire Matthews (Natalie Zea).

The biggest problem I have with The Following is how thinly developed the main villain and his cult of minions are. There were times when the show's premise--a serial killer and his followers committing murders based on classic literature--reminded me of the excellent Vincent Price film, Theatre of Blood (1973). In that film, Price played Edward Lionheart, a deranged Shakespearean actor who leads a troupe of follow lunatics on a killing spree of critics who he believes destroyed his career and each murder is based on a scenario from Shakespeare's plays. The significant difference, though, is that while Theatre of Blood made ample usage of Shakespeare and British theatre culture as part of its plot, The Following doesn't really know what to do with Edgar Allen Poe and the macabre literary tradition that he followed.

Sure, many episodes referenced some of Poe's more popular works and they even had cult members running around in rubber Poe masks, but what exactly draws Carroll and his followers to Poe's work enough to make it the basis of a murderous cult ideology is never explored in any significant depth. It felt like Williamson believed that frequently name-dropping a horror icon such as Poe in his series would make The Following scarier by extension. It didn't, and it instead revealed how much Williamson doesn't understand about Poe specifically and Gothic horror in general.

Williamson's inability to convincingly portray the obsession that Carroll and his cult have with Poe led to other problems throughout the series. Without developing the Poe-centric ideology of the cult, the cult itself never materializes as a distinct presence within the show. If anything, the cult becomes an excuse to show characters doing violent and crazy things at key, plot-driven moments; yet because the characters in question lack any discernible motivation, all they are good for is an occasional jump scare and nothing more. Furthermore, without a core ideology, Carroll's supposed plan for his cult never comes to fruition--largely because Carroll's behavior and decisions during the second half of the season cast considerable doubt on whether he had any plan in the first place. Indeed, the version of Carroll we see at the end of the season seems much more like a hack writer and vengeful lover than a criminally brilliant, serial killing cult leader.

(Don't take it too hard, Professor Carroll. I can think of a few Cylons who can sympathize with the desire to kill lots of people but are also unable to devise a good master plan that will make the most out of such murderous desires.)

We were supposed to have a plan too, dammit!

Looking back, it felt like there were two conflicting plots in The Following: One is about a serial killer who uses his psychological manipulations of an FBI agent as the basis of a novel, and the other is about a serial killer who develops a cult of killers-in-training on an estate within a gated upper-class community. In the hands of a talented writer and production team, either of these plots could have been the basis for genuinely terrifying television entertainment. Yet in the hands of Williamson, neither of these plots--which share the common character in Carroll--amount to much, which leaves viewers with a horror TV series that alternates between a prolonged cat-and-mouse chase between FBI agents and assorted killers and scenes between cult members that play out like some kind of soap opera populated by attractive crazy people. Such a series does have a fair amount of strange, creepy moments, but it doesn't make for memorable TV either.

I've heard that The Following has been renewed for a second season, so I'm hoping that this show will improve when it returns. Yet if Williamson is content for his show to be nothing more than 24 with serial killers--which is what seems to be the case so far--then The Following will never become a distinct horror show of its own.

Farewell Futurama, Take Three

In case you haven't heard, Comedy Central has announced that it's discontinuing Futurama after its next 13 episode run, which will begin in June and end at the beginning of September.

For those of you who have been keeping score, Futurama first ran on Fox for four seasons, from 1999 to 2003. It came back in 2007 with four movies on Comedy Central (four movies that were subsequently edited into 16 half-hour episodes, which makes me wonder why they were made as movies in the first place). Comedy Central then renewed the cartoon as a half-hour series with two 26 episode seasons, which have aired as 13 episode blocks during the summers of 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013. In total, Futurama will leave the air with a total of 140 episodes to its name.

According to what I've read, Comedy Central is cancelling the show due to falling ratings. Then again, Comedy Central has treated new episodes of Futurama as summer-exclusive content, so I can see how fan enthusiasm can diminish during such an unusual schedule. Watching a series from fall to spring and then waiting over the summer for the series to come back in the subsequent fall is a reasonable degree of anticipation; asking viewers to remember to watch a series that only runs new episodes during the summer is probably asking too much of modern attention-deficient audiences. Nevertheless, even though I love Futurama, its sparse run on Comedy Central makes the news of its latest cancellation easier to accept.

Like most fans, I was miffed when Fox cancelled Futurama after doing everything it could to torpedo the show's ratings; thus, the fact that this series came back at all is quite an accomplishment, one that is hard to top for such a cult-appeal show. As long as the final 13 episode block maintains decent level of quality, I honestly can't complain about its latest cancellation. Besides, Futurama produced a respectable amount of ancillary material (a comic books series, a video game, toys, and lots of other fun merchandise), and it won't be kept on the air long past the point where is shouldn't be (such as The Simpsons, South Park, King of the Hill, and Family Guy).

I'll miss Futurama. It was a show that poked fun at sci-fi and was very smart in its own right (it even has its own mathematical theorem), and it has scored dozens of award nominations and wins to prove just how great it is. The TV cartoon universe will be a much smaller place without it.

Must-See BBC TV: In the Flesh

With so many zombie-themed movies, TV shows and video games on the market these days, it's hard to find a zombie story that's genuinely unique. Most follow the apocalyptic bloodbath plot that was pioneered by George Romero in his zombie films. In contrast, the BBC has broadcast In the Flesh, a three-part miniseries that has roots in Romero's work but takes it into provocative new territory.

Created and written by Dominic Mitchell, In the Flesh is about a British teenager named Kieren (Luke Newberry) who is being treated for "Partially Deceased Syndrome", or PDS. PDS is the term given to the phenomenon that reanimated the dead in a zombie outbreak that happened four years earlier. In the time since then, a large number of zombies--or "rotters" as they are called in the miniseries--have been rehabilitated through medical treatments and are being integrated back into society. The series follows Kieren as he returns to his family in the rural village of Roarton and how he and the world around him are adjusting to existence of the partially dead among the living.

While there are some brief flashes of gore in In the Flesh, it is not your typical zombie story. It takes the imagery, concepts and symbolism associated with zombies and uses them to examine modern issues such as drug abuse, mental health, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and widely-publicized diseases such as cancer and AIDS. In the series' post-outbreak world, PDS sufferers receive daily injections of a medication called Neurotriptyline and therapy to help them move on with their (after)lives, while family members of PDS sufferers can attend support groups to discuss the difficulties of caring for loved ones who are neither completely alive nor dead. Government-published posters and literature about PDS make cameo appearances throughout the series, while some survivors of the zombie outbreak are appalled at having to accept PDS sufferers--including ones they knew and cared for before the outbreak--as equal members of their community. In a sense, In the Flesh is the equal but opposite of Bob Clark's Deathdream (1972).

The plot device of rehabilitating zombies has been played for laughs many times before, such as in Shaun of the Dead, Fido, Ugly Americans and Warm Bodies. Yet In the Flesh plays it mostly straight and it works, largely due to Mitchell populating his story with so many interesting ideas, vivid details and nuanced characters. Monsters have been used as metaphors for diseases and social problems many, many times before, but it's rare to see a story like In the Flesh that takes the perspective of people who have to care for loved ones who have become "monsters" and how the newly monster-ized cope with their not-quite-human status. (For another good example of this, see my essay on the original The Fly and its sequels.) Between the strength of the script and wonderful performances by the cast, this series succeeds as a horror drama, a rare accomplishment in horror television. My only complaint is that the series runs for just three hour-long episodes; Mitchell provides so many details and subplots within his story that I'd love to see where it goes next after the third episode comes to an end.

If you're looking for hordes of zombies having a blood-drenched, entrails-splattered feeding frenzy on the living, this miniseries is not for you. Yet if you're looking for a unique, rewarding and thoughtful story about the living dead, In the Flesh is something you need to see. With the topics such as mental health, PTSD and suicide making frequent appearances in current discussions over gun violence and veterans returning from extended tours in the Middle East, In the Flesh really is a zombie tale for our time.

For more details about In the Flesh, including an annotated shooting script for the "Understanding PDS" public service video, check out the official series page over at the BBC site.

The Walking Dead and the Challenges of Cross-Media Adaptations

When it comes to movies that are adaptations of novels, everyone knows the drill by now: the book is usually better than the movie. It's a fair criticism, since the printed page is a very different medium than the moving image. But what happens when a TV show attempts to adapt a serialized--and unfinished--comic book series? With AMC's The Walking Dead, we're watching such an attempt play out now on prime time.

I've read through the first 70 issues of the Walking Dead comic book, which was created and written by Robert Kirkman, so I have ample amounts of source information to draw from when comparing it to its televised counterpart. I enjoy the TV show's ample amounts of zombie gore, and I thought that it got off to a great start in its first six-episode season. But after watching the meandering second season and seeing the third season end so poorly last week, I'm beginning to wonder how much longer this show can go with its rapidly rotting legs in spite of its high ratings. Read on for my analysis of the show, and why adapting an ongoing comic book series into a different medium requires much more planning and foresight than adapting a single novel.

NOTE: This post makes many references to events in both versions of The Walking Dead. Thus, if you aren't familiar with either of them but want to read/see them later, you might want to skip this post to avoid spoilers.

When The Walking Dead first appeared in comic book stores back in 2003, I was impressed at how it took an idea that's been around since George Romero's Night of the Living Dead--a global zombie epidemic--and turned it into a serialized narrative. Essentially, The Walking Dead is Night of the Living Dead: The Series; why nobody through to do this before Kirkman still astonishes me. Unlike Living Dead's sequels, which jumped to different sets of characters at different locations during the epidemic, The Walking Dead stuck with a group of characters during society's collapse in the wake of the epidemic and how they try to bring stability back into their lives while stuck in a world overrun by reanimated, flesh-eating corpses. Because the story was told through the pages of a comic book, the narrative possibilities were limited only by the imagination and talent of the comic's writer and artist.

The TV version of Walking Dead started in 2010 and it has tried to recreate the comic in many aspects. Most of the central characters and story arcs that appear in the comic are also in the TV show, with varying degrees of accuracy. However, due to the complications that come with TV production (in this case, AMC cutting the show's production budget and then ordering a larger number of episodes per season, as well as a seasonal succession of showrunners), the TV Walking Dead runs at a much different pace than the comic, which has resulted in some peculiar and counter-intuitive creative choices.

I've read many complaints (many of which I think are spot-on) about the Walking Dead TV show in how it handles its female and non-white characters. Here are some of the complaints that I have:

* The farmhouse story arc that only lasted for six issues in the comic was stretched for the entirety of season two, which ran for thirteen episodes. To me, it felt like a five-episode arc that was padded into a thirteen-episode season.

* The prison vs. Woodbury story in the comic was very simple: Rick, Michonne and Glenn are held prisoner by the Governor in Woodsbury, they escape back to the prison, and then there's a fight between Rick's group and the Governor's personal army at the prison, which results in massive casualties. This same story arc was the basis of season three and it felt like many details and subplots were added to simply to meet the sixteen episode requirement for the season, not to push the show in an interesting new direction. In the TV show, not only did the Governor survive the final confrontation at the prison, he also survived several other instances throughout the season where he should have logically died.

In spite of the differences between the details and pacing of the story arcs between the comic book and the TV show, it seems that the show's producers want the TV characters to develop the same way as their comic book counterparts do and when they don’t, another character is swapped in to take his/her place. When Dale was killed in season two at the farmhouse because the actor who played him quit, Herschel takes his place in season three (complete with losing a leg due to a zombie bite in the prison, just like Dale) even though he was the one who died at the farmhouse in the comic. I've also noticed that when the narrative trajectories of the TV characters stray very far from their comic book counterparts (specifically Andrea and Carol) the TV show doesn't know what to do with them. In contrast, I can see why Daryl is the most popular character in the show: Because he appeared briefly in the comic early in its run, the TV writers had many more opportunities to develop Daryl without having to meet any narrative requirement from the comic or use him as a replacement for a prematurely dispatched character.

When adapting a novel into a movie, the filmmakers naturally have to choose what can be translated from the printed page to film, and what cannot be translated due to budgetary and/or running time restrictions. In the case of The Walking Dead, the demands of AMC and TV production in production in general prohibit the series from being a faithful adaptation of the comic, yet it nevertheless remains dedicated to keeping the same characters and stories from the comic even past the point of its own internal logic.

Looking back, it may have been better for AMC to produce a Walking Dead TV series as a spinoff to the comic book that takes place in the same universe. That would've given the show's creative team more freedom to develop characters, settings and story arcs that are much more complementary with the show's budget and production schedule. In fact, a spinoff might have even been better than The Walking Dead comic itself. Despite the freedoms that the print medium allows, the comic hasn't moved past the main theme of every George Romero zombie movie: no matter how grotesque and dangerous the reanimated dead are, the living can and will be much, much worse. It's a compelling theme, but at over 100 issues and counting you'd think that a zombie comic book would have something else to say by now.

The Governor (David Morrissey) and Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln):

Gunfight at the Zombie Corral?

This wouldn't be the first time that a TV network would impose difficult and counterproductive demands on a genre TV show. The original Battlestar Galactica was supposed to be a series of made-for-TV movies, but ABC demanded that it be made into a TV series instead--a series that was later cancelled because the declining ratings weren't enough to justify the series’ large production budget, a problem that probably wouldn't have happened if ABC hadn't rejected the original plan of TV movies. Likewise, the original 1983 miniseries V was made on a very small budget, but that didn't keep NBC from deciding to continue the V story as a weekly TV series the following year. It too was cancelled after one season, and for the same reasons as Galactica's cancellation.

The Walking Dead doesn't appear to have the same problems as Galactica or V because it keeps setting ratings records and has been renewed for a fourth season. Yet if it doesn't do something to set itself apart as a TV series with its own dramatic momentum apart from the source comic, this zombie show could wind up dropping dead in the ratings before it sees a fifth season.