On How The Walking Dead TV Series Could Get Better

I became an instant fan of "The Walking Dead" TV series the first day it aired.  I think it is, in many respects, a solid piece of post-apocalyptic fiction.  To a large extent, what we see is a pretty accurate portrait of the human psyche under duress.  I liked it so much, I recently bought "The Walking Dead:  Compendium One" which collects roughly half of the comics (I haven't finished it yet).  There are several areas, however, on which I think it could improve.


Before I continue, I think the charge that the zombies play a mere incidental role isn't a legitimate charge.  The fiction market is saturated with zombie films, books, short stories, comics, etc. where the locus of the story telling is on the zombies.  The zombies are the centerpiece, while the human characters are merely along for the ride.  This isn't necessarily bad.  But it isn't superior to other forms of zombie apocalypse stories.


There's value, I think, in showing the very human side of a zombie apocalypse, in which people struggle just in maintaining social order.  We should remember that characters are not, and should not be, robots.  They should be living breathing people, full of a wide range of emotions and personal baggage.  We see this point vividly in The Walking Dead TV series.  We see people struggling with a lot of personal bullshit.  Some find it boring.  I find it enduring.  The fact that there aren't zombie attacks each episode, highlights the fact that if there is to be long term survival, there can't be constant zombie attacks.  Remember, war isn't the sum of all battles and battles only make up a small portion of war.  War is punctuated by long periods of relative peace.  Why shouldn't we expect the same from a zombie story?


There are several flaws, however.  Two of the major ones are the series treatment of race relations and it's lack of engagement with gender issues.  The fact that there is only one black guy left, and his name is T. Dogg, highlights a major flaw in the series.  It preys upon a white stereotype which is reprehensible.  T. Dogg, also, plays a minor role.  God forbid we write a black character who takes a leadership role or who plays a central role in the narrative.


It's also worth noting that, apparently, no homosexual or transgender people have survived the zombie apocalypse.  I haven't seen one homosexual character in the whole TV series.  This isn't a minor point.  Why isn't this group represented, considering they make up a large portion of the population?  Now, some might think my claim here is politically correct liberalism gone a muck.  But it isn't.  There's a pretty large cast of characters.  Considering that a sizable portion of the population are homosexuals, the show is sending a subtle message (in my view).  The message is either that homosexuals aren't relevant or that they wouldn't survive the zombie apocalypse.  The first of which is false, and the second of which is highly specious.


What do you folks think?  Is this a fair assessment?