Bye bye Zombies, Hello Dragons

So The Walking Dead finished its third season last night and Game of Thrones started theirs. Has there ever been a better television time for geeks than now?


A few random thoughts on both (spoilers ahead):

So the Governor survived and Andrea died. The Walking Dead has now entered Dexter territory, deviating widely from the source material and creating a new story. I like that even as a fan of the comic series, I can no longer predict who will come and go and what stories they will tell.

In fact, it feels a bit like they are going to try and change the core idea of the book and series. The series has always been about this group of survivors that travels to a place, joins a society, and things tend to go to hell. But here, with the remnants of Woodbury joining them at the prison, the show looks like it will spend some time actually building a society. I’m fascinated to see where this is going to go.

How odd that if they took the opposite tack with Game of Thrones I would be horrified! I’m not even that obsessive a fan of the books, as I only started reading them because I knew the show was coming. But I was immediately engrossed by George R.R. Martin’s worldbuilding. To see it come to life each week in such a rich, layered way is just….WOW.

Of course I have always wondered what’s going to happen down the road when the series catches up to the books. At the rate Martin’s is putting them out, it would be incredibly lucky if book six was out in time for it to be adapted. But what will happen for the last book? Will they have to create their own ending or will Martin want the book’s ending spoiled?

Andrea’s death seemed like the only way out of the corner they had written her into. Her weird siding with the Governor and Woodbury over Michonne and her old comrades just became alienating. There wasn’t any way for them to come back from it that would have felt real.

Did anyone else notice how the two major deaths this season was about half the female cast? Those boys are going to get very lonely at the prison…..

Meanwhile, Peter Dinklage shows in every episode just how you steal an ensemble TV show. Tyron has always been my favorite character in the series and the way Dinklage brings him to life has made him my favorite character on the TV series as well.

I want a pet dragon.