Well, after all those months of hype, HBO’s mumblecom Girls finally arrives on Sky Atlantic, and thus on Telly Addict, written by Lena Dunham, directed by Lena Dunham, produced by Lena Dunham, executive produced by Lena Dunham and starring Lena Dunham; another new US import, Elementary, from CBS, starts here on Sky Living, probably not watched by Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat or Sue Virtue; and, belatedly, a look at the first episode of season three of The Walking Dead, on FX here, but AMC over there: with 10.9 million viewers the most watched single cable entertainment telecast of all time, so I’m led to believe. Of course, there’s also room for a quick nibble of The Great British Bake Off Masterclass on BBC2, but though it was designed to make obsessives happy, it served only to make me sad that the actual competition is over. Let’s not be a plait about it.
Never Knowingly Underwhelmed
Don't look like much here, but we have everything
Never Knowingly Underwhelmed 
Apologies if my replies have rather dominated your blog recently but I couldn’t let this one go by without commenting.
I must admit, having really enjoyed season 1 of The Walking Dead so much I was worried when I heard that they’d switched writers for the second season. My fears increased at the start of Ep1 with the rather sentimental church scene but after that it never put a foot wrong for me.
I’ve read critics who accused S2 of being too ‘Soapy’ but if they mean by that, the writers took time to develop characters and explore relationships then bring it on. If anything the ‘Walkers’ in S2 were just a (albeit rather crucial and constant) backdrop to the human story. The main plot – and this isn’t a spoiler – is the war between Shane and Rick. Shane believing they have to shed virtually all the remnants of civilised society in order to survive. Rick not seeing the point of survival if you lose all trace of humanity in order to do so. And it’s Rick’s ‘journey’ to a position closer to Shane’s that provides most of the plot.
And S2 contains some of the best dramatic scenes I’ve ever witnessed in any TV drama of any genre ever, let alone a post-apocalyptic zombie-romp. I cite (marginal plot spoiler coming up but quite an old one) the scene between Lori and Rick where the former confesses all about her relationship with Shane and, rather than usual hyped up dramatic response and drawn out plot development, the latter simply says “I knew, of course knew”. Wonderful. And the pre mid-season (I hate it when that happens) break episode was awe inspiringingly shocking (I won’t say why but I’d bought into the whole thing so much I’d given up trying to anticipate what might happen so never saw it coming). And the bar room scene in the season’s second half would have been drawn out for a whole series in other dramas but here, when Rick did what he did, you just thought “yep, that’s what I would have done, thanks for sparing us a tedious few weeks of the inevitable”.
BTW, I know fans of the graphic novel in particular will have been anticipating S3, but that record breaking audience for S3 Ep1 was largely based on the brilliant writing in season 2.
If none of the above means anything to anyone, you should get the DVDs and watch it. Truly, utterly magnificent TV.
@Richard Smith – great post. I agree completely, particularly what you say about the lack of “action” in Series 2, which a lot of people complained about. Zombie attacks are fun and all, but this series is interesting because of the human interaction, relationships and just a study into “What would you do if…?”. Also really enjoying Rick’s character development. Inevitable perhaps, but gradual and well judged. Whether we agree with his decisions or not we can see why he made them, and know he didn’t do it lightly.