"The Walking Dead" are Treading on Thin Ice

AMC's "The Walking Dead" on Sundays at 9:00 pm EST.

Like the world it takes place in, AMC’s “The Walking Dead” features a plot-turned-upside-down that offers hope to zombie fans, but continues to drag viewers along from nightmare to nightmare of poor pacing and melodramatic writing with only hints of rescue.

At its inception in 2010, Frank Darabont’s “The Walking Dead” (adapted from the ongoing comic book series by Robert Kirkman) aimed to offer viewers something that few chapters of zombie-lore had before: an intimate and ongoing glimpse into the lives of a small group of survivors during zombie Armageddon. The series set its sights on going beyond the movies of George A. Romero and crew; the cameras don’t stop and the credits never roll on “The Walking Dead,” and everyone knows it.

There are times throughout “The Walking Dead” where the series achieves that goal. The pilot episode features a captivating, if slightly worn (pulled almost directly from 2002 film “28 Days Later”), exposition that paints a likable character in main protagonist Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and provides an engaging beginning to what could be a great series. More than once during this hour and a half-long installment will you find your guts churning at something other than the ultra-realistic gore – like the scene where Rick stumbles into what used to be his home in search of his wife and child, only to find some empty drawers and a few missing photo albums. The mental breakdown he experiences then is effective and believable; Rick’s sadness becomes your sadness (thanks to some decent acting by Lincoln), and this small town sheriff adds depth to his character by showing some vulnerability.

Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) sees his family for the first time.

The following episode loses some of its shine, though, but still seems to charm you into watching by introducing new characters and threatening to kill them; these additions add a new dynamic to the show – just like real people would – but are largely archetypical and one-dimensional in scope.

The series continues to dull in episodes three, four, and five, and then, by episode six, like the day you had to take a baseball bat to your best-friend-turned-zombie’s head after already watching him be eaten, the series has gone from bad to worse.

Surprisingly, what plagues “The Walking Dead” most are not the zombies (called “walkers” in the show) – it suffers from a slew of hitches brought about by its failed quest for identity. The series swerves drunkenly back and forth on the very thick line between high-profile action shows like “24” and “General Hospital”-like soap operas, stopping at each briefly to imitate it in a sometimes embarrassing public-display-of-insecurity.

But this balance is not unobtainable (see: episode one), which is why it must be frustrating for viewers to shamble through several episodes filled with poor pacing and forced melodrama. For every one thing “The Walking Dead” does right, it’s bound to do three or more things wrong, and the brilliance of each success makes the following failures all the more inexcusable.

Some characters make bonehead decisions – like the time when Glenn (Steven Yeun) drives a stolen car back to camp with its alarm blaring, knowing damn-well that walkers are drawn to sound – and others are just unlikable or too one-dimensional to care about. In a series that is character-driven and uses tension between survivors or an unfortunate death to advance the plot, this should not happen.

“The Walking Dead” is now in its second season and looks to have clenched a third, but nothing has changed. The series still suffers from an unevenly paced plot – the cast has spent the last four episodes searching for the even-less significant daughter of a minor character, even though it took less than two episodes in season one for Rick to find his family – and the characters are largely the same, with a few welcome exceptions. Much of what seemed promising at the beginning of season one has been squandered thanks to a staggered search for identity, and, if something doesn’t change soon, it won’t be the zombies that scare viewers away from “The Walking Dead”; it’ll be the disappointment of its unreached potential.