What would you do if you woke up one day and the world you knew was gone forever? Your loved ones are gone, you’re completely alone and, oh yeah, the dead are rising to consume the living. This is the situation Sheriff Rick Grimes finds himself in at the beginning of The Walking Dead; a gunshot in the line of duty leaves him requiring hospital time and a small surgery, little did he know that whilst unconscious the world would fall apart. The first season amounts to a 6-episode pilot season for the show that encapsulates both the great and the less-than-stellar elements of the show. The show does get a little soap-opera-ish at times but is easily forgiven due to quality of everything else around it. Rick does find a group of survivors that has his wife, Lori, his son Carl and best friend/deputy Shane and a whole slew of other characters. The tensions run high in the group with some believing that the military would be charging through any day now to save them, others convinced that help will never come and even some who simply want to give up. Personalities clash while the dead ceaselessly begin to thin the group out one by one.

Obviously, the presentation of the undead is key to shows success to that end Greg Nicotero and his department do an incredible job. The focus is on the best ways to use practical effects with as little CGI as possible putting on a clinic in film effects; the continuously innovate new ways to show Walkers, use real amputees to avoid CG and sell the decomposition of the undead and they went as far as to create a zombie school for extras to perfect the ever changing manner of the mindless hordes. All of this amounts to, likely, the best on-screen zombies to date.

Behind the camera also featured horror icon Frank Darabont lending the show some much needed gravitas. Walking Dead comic creator Robert Kirkman joined Darabont in mapping out the show with the plots intentionally diverting from the comic story in a bid to keep it fresh for all viewers. The finale is a marked departure from anything in the comics with the group heading to the CDC for shelter and help; this gave the show the opportunity to explain the manner and severity of the walkers to the audience including the fact that while bites accelerate the turning process everyone is already infected – meaning upon any cause of death the body will rise as a zombie. No such scientific exposition is provided in the comics, with the effects and illness observed through a prolonged series trial-and-error leading to the same conclusion.

While not perfectly paced, the first season establishes the main players, the group dynamic and the world the inhabit brilliantly. When most shows would end on a note of triumph, the first season is non-stereotypical in its dour ending with the group seemingly locked in perpetual danger, no safe place to call home and no end to the apocalypse in sight.