The Walking Dead: Season 3

More than seven months after being forced to flee Herschel's farm, Rick Grimes and the group he leads are tired, ragged and badly in need of shelter and a place to relax. Stumbling across an abandoned prison, they set about clearing it of walkers and turning it into a base of operations. Meanwhile, Andrea, separated from the rest of the group, has hooked up with a sword-wielding loner named Michonne (who uses 'neutralised' walkers - with their arms and jaws removed - to carry supplies). They find an apparent safe haven in the town of Woodbury, run by the apparently well-meaning 'Governor'. But it isn't long before Rick's group and the Governor's followers run into one another, setting the scene for a major confrontation and testing the loyalties of those in both groups.

The Walking Dead is a contradictory series. On the one hand, it's often compulsive viewing. It's more ruthless to its characters even than Game of Thrones and Lost (the latter of which it is beginning to resemble more and more) and the show puts a pleasing emphasis on taking common sense precautions against the zombie threat (although it's not above using individual moments of implausible stupidity for dramatic gain). On the other, it often promises more than it delivers and the first two seasons both had a tendency to deploy filler material. The third season is an attempt to tackle these issues and play to the strengths of the premise whilst not getting bogged down so much. Unfortunately, this was sabotaged from the get-go by AMC's demand that the season be extended to sixteen episodes, which turns out to be about four too long.

The series starts off promisingly. The delayed discovery of the prison (which we saw in the final shot of Season 2 close to Rick's group but it's taken seven months of them going round in circles to get back to it) and the need to clear it out provides a lot of dramatic impetus in the early episodes. Splitting the group, getting Andrea and Michonne to Woodbury and a dramatic reunion with a missing former member of their group all provide strong storytelling opportunities. The introduction of the Governor, played with relish by David Morrissey, is well-handled and giving Rick a nemesis and someone to bounce off is a great idea. The first half of the season is indeed The Walking Dead at its best, featuring some rich scenes of character development and even some satisfying action scenes (even if the ease with which walkers are now being dispatched compared to earlier seasons is starting to get a little silly).

Things deteriorate rapidly in the second half. Some rather bizarre wheel-spinning kicks in and we get a face-to-face confrontation between Rick and the Governor which really doesn't do anything, as well a completely pointless episode featuring two characters playing cat-and-mouse in an abandoned warehouse. As more excuses are found to delay the big finale battle, things get less and less plausible until scenes that were supposed to be powerfully tragic become instead rather comical. There's also less focus on the day-to-day details of living with the walker threat; in the final episode people are casually leaving gates open and walking past biters without too much care. The second half of the season does retain some dramatic highlights, such as Carl Grimes graduating from 'pointlessly hanging-around kid' to 'PTSD-suffering child soldier' and the intriguing arrival of Tyreese (played by The Wire's Chad Coleman), but it's a far cry from the opening half.

Ultimately, the third season of The Walking Dead (****) is watchable, entertaining and features some very strong dramatic scenes and elements in its first half. The second half is more disappointing, featuring significant lapses in plot logic and characterisation. If anything, whilst the second season (which was a little too static) benefited a lot from being viewed in rapid-fire on Blu-Ray, the third season suffers, with the longueurs in the second half being far more incongruous than if viewed from week to week. The season is available now in the UK (DVD, Blu-Ray) and USA (DVD, Blu-Ray).

The Walking Dead: Season 1 (adventure game)

The dead have risen and the world has been thrown into ruin. A band of survivors gathers together to try to escape the chaos, but find that their greatest enemy may not be the walking dead, but themselves.

Much has been written about Telltale's computer game adaptation of Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead comic series, usually involving such words as 'amazing', 'intense', 'emotional' and 'cried like a three-year-old'. They are not far off. With The Walking Dead, Telltale have achieved what may be the finest computer game adaptation of a pre-existing franchise in gaming's history, something that supports the original story whilst also standing completely on its own two feet.

The Walking Dead takes place in the same world as the comics (but not the TV series, which is an alternate reality) and is canon to them. The developers - working alongside Kirkman - take advantage of this to show off the backstory of comic characters Hershel and Glen, but for the most part the focus is firmly on the original characters created for the game. Chief amongst these is the player-controlled protagonist, Lee Everett. Lee is a criminal who was on his way to prison when the zombie apocalypse broke out, and some of the game's tension comes from whether he is honest or not about his background to his new-found friends.

The core relationship of the game is between Lee and eight-year-old Clementine, a young girl he rescues from a zombie attack on a house. A long-term goal of the game is to reunite Clementine with her parents (if they are still alive) in Savannah, Georgia, but as the game continues Lee becomes convinced that the chances of her parents still being alive are very slim and takes on a father-figure role himself. The relationship is well-portrayed by the writers and actors, with the apparent oddness of an unrelated non-parent (who is also a convicted felon) caring for a young girl he just met being addressed. The characterisation is extremely strong, though to so more of it may risk spoilers (a problem for any review of the game).

The game has echoes of events from other incarnations of The Walking Dead, such as whether it's a good idea to teach young children how to use firearms against zombies or not, but Telltale puts their fresh spin on each idea as it comes up. Particularly well-handled is the way that the same major worldbuilding bits of information from the graphic novels are discovered by this group of characters, but in a rather different manner to the comics. For example, the knowledge that everyone will become a zombie when they die (regardless of whether they are bitten or not) - a major revelation in the comics and TV series - comes up almost immediately in the game, whilst a more minor piece of info about the zombies that the comic series threw in almost immediately takes a long time to come up in the game, and is much more decisive (and horrible).

The Walking Dead's storyline is impressive, with the zombies acting as a catalyst for how the characters interact with one another and deal with the pressure of a crumbling civilisation. The game hits many of the same beats as the TV series and the comics, but in a much more immersive way due to the way your decisions have lasting consequences, and some events can be changed. The dialogue is well-written, with each of the five episodes having its own self-contained plot and thematic arc as well as contributing to the overall storyline of the game. Given the lack of time (even at 15 hours, there a lot of characters to get through), Telltale achieve an impressive amount of depth for each character in the game as well. In terms of writing, structure and pacing, The Walking Dead is excellent.

Where the game comes off the rails a bit is the gameplay. Simply put, you spend the majority of your time watching The Walking Dead, rather than playing it, and most of your controls are based around choosing dialogue options. The sections where you get to take control of Lee, talk to other characters at leisure, explore areas and solve puzzles are the most fun in the game, but also the rarest (roughly boiling down to one or two such sections per episode). There's also a significant number of irritating Quick Time Events as well. It's a tribute to the writing skills of the team behind the game that these issues are not the total game-killers they'd be in other titles, but it does make The Walking Dead less of a game and more of an interactive comic (though still a very good interactive comic).

More problematic is the fact that the game is sold as one where your choices matter, but the truth of that is up for debate. At one stage you choose to save one character or another and this leads to some different character scenes and dialogue for a while, but ultimately has no long-term ramifications. The major beats of the plot and most character deaths also happen regardless of your dialogue and choices, with what you do more impacting on other characters' reactions to you and what they do rather than anything substantive in the storyline. Oddly this doesn't seem to matter: moreso than in most games, it's the journey that matters much more than the resolution.

The Walking Dead (****½) is an intense, well-written and extremely atmospheric adventure game, but one where you do not have as much control over what is going on as what is promised or written. How much of an issue this is will be up to the player, but I found it easily ignored in favour of the smart writing and the fascinating character relationships. The Walking Dead: Season 1 is available now on PC, X-Box 360 (UK, USA), PlayStation 3 (UK, USA) and iPad/iPhone. A second 'season' will be released later in 2013.

The Walking Dead: Season 2

Rick Grimes and his fellow survivors have escaped from Atlanta. Making for Fort Benning and the hope of rescue, the group is waylaid on the highway by a horde of walkers. With one of the group missing and another severely injured, they find a safe haven at a nearby farm and the hope of a new home. But as the days and weeks pass, the unresolved tensions in the group threaten to tear it apart.

The second season of The Walking Dead picks up shortly after the events of the first. Whilst the first only had six episodes to tell its story, the second has thirteen, giving it more time to explore the premise and characters.

Things get off to a strong start in the first few episodes, which focus on the confrontation on the highway and the attempts to bring the group back together. New characters - the Greene family - and a new location - a large farmstead - are introduced and events unfold with some vigour. However, after the third episode the story bogs down a little as characters start spinning their wheels at the farm. This is where the ramifications of a major pre-season production crisis - a budget cut that infuriated showrunner Frank Darabont and saw him leave the series - are at their most noticeable. Whilst the budget problems ground the series for a little too long at the farm, the producers do make the most of the money they do have. The zombie effects are a cut above the more variable effects of the first season and there are some truly gruesome moments that equal the most visceral scenes of any zombie movie that comes to mind.

The long pause at the farm does allow some effective character development, particularly of Shane (Jon Bernthal), whose growing disillusionment with the group and his inability to accept the new status quo and move on is depicted quite well, even if the story does take a few too many episodes to come to a head. However, probably the best characterisation is left to Daryl (Norman Reedus), who evolves from the quieter brother of racist redneck Merle in the first season into a conflicted, complex character who refuses to fit easily into any stereotype. Rick (Andrew Lincoln), our main protagonist, gets a little lost in the mix this season with storylines focusing mostly on other characters, but comes back strong towards the end of the season as he starts to show signs of not handling the stress of command very well. However, his dynamic with Herschel (Scott Wilson) and the twists and turns it goes through is fascinating, with Herschel moving from a pacifistic man of faith to shotgun-wielding zombie-slayer under Rick's (not entirely laudable) influence. The introduction of Maggie (Lauren Cohan) as a love interest for Glenn (Steven Yeun) also adds a rare glimmer of sunlight to a dark season.

Whilst the season does suffer from some slow pacing in its central section, it remains highly watchable, and the pacing issue is mitigated considerably on DVD without a week-long break between each episode. There are some effective moments of dark humour (the 'zombie well' scene is hilarious), the writing is pretty good and the actors mostly effective. Aside from the pacing issue, the character of Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) suffers the worst from inconsistent writing and motivations, which the actress does her best to make sense of but can't quite sell.

Events culminate in a fairly epic two-part season finale in which the bubbling tensions within the group boil over and the biggest battle between the survivors and the zombies to date takes place. Despite some longeurs and niggling problems, Season 2 (****½) ends on a high that leaves a lot of balls in the air for the third season and its promise of introducing some of the best characters and storylines from the comic book to the TV series. The series is available now in the UK (DVD, Blu-Ray) and USA (DVD, Blu-Ray).