TWD Series Bible: Your 10 Commandments for the Show

[AcesandEights]

I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with the concept of a series bible, and while it's easy to say the comics should be the bible for the TV show the idea is to boil down the most essential points, the major "Dos" and "Don'ts" for the show that the writers would ideally follow. My question is: If building a TWD series bible, what would your 10 Commandments be that every writer must either abide by, or get direct producer and series creator (Kirkman) override to put in a script proposal? Also, these are meant to be guidelines that are easy to navigate, so brevity is encouraged.

[kidgloves]

Regularly kill off main characters. No one should be safe. No running zombies. No cure or reason given for the apocalypse.

[bassman]

My main thing would be that it's about the people, not the zombies.

[Sammich]

1. Thou shall not have running zombies. 2. Thou shall not have zombies that make loud bear/lion/dinosaur/Chris Croker noises. 3. Thou shall not have vegetarian zombies. 5. Thou shall not have unrealistic firearms (i.e. 100 round shotguns, 3000 round rifles, 50 round revolvers and pistols) 5. Thou shall not allow any of the cast of Jersey Shore onto the show. 6. Thou shall not allow anyone involved in Zombie Nation, Day of the Dead Contagium, or the added footage to NOTLD 30th Anniversary Edition anywhere near TWD. 7. Thou shall not make anymore stereotyped characters. 8. Thou shall not have matrix-esque slow motion circular pan action scenes. 9. Thou shall not turn TWD into a comedy or musical. 10. Thou SHALL show graphic death scenes of mike bravo alpha's whenever possible.

[AcesandEights]

1. Thou shall not have running zombies. 2. Thou shall not have zombies that make loud bear/lion/dinosaur/Chris Croker noises. 3. Thou shall not have vegetarian zombies. 5. Thou shall not have unrealistic firearms (i.e. 100 round shotguns, 3000 round rifles, 50 round revolvers and pistols) 5. Thou shall not allow any of the cast of Jersey Shore onto the show. 6. Thou shall not allow anyone involved in Zombie Nation, Day of the Dead Contagium, or the added footage to NOTLD 30th Anniversary Edition anywhere near TWD. 7. Thou shall not make anymore stereotyped characters. 8. Thou shall not have matrix-esque slow motion circular pan action scenes. 9. Thou shall not turn TWD into a comedy or musical. 10. Thou SHALL show graphic death scenes of mike bravo alpha's whenever possible. ^Now that's what I'm talking about!

[shootemindehead]

Death should be terrifying and gory. Zombies SHOULD NOT "smell" the living. FFS! The comic should be followed more closely (because it beats the shit out of anything the TV show has done so far)

[Christopher Jon]

I don't have 10, here are four: Rule #1: The Zombies Are they fast or slow? Do all dead or just those bitten become zombies? etc... Rule #2: The World If the story takes place in the real world then people, machines, weapons etc... should act accordingly. Rule #3: Avoid Lazy Writing Stay away from stupid people doing stupid stuff just to move the story along. Rule #4: Consistancy Stick to the rules. Don't break them for contrived or convenient stories. TWD has broken all of these rules.

[Thorn]

1) Zombies are to never run 2) Zombies are realistic believable, and scary in appearance but never used in "gotcha" moments where they are posing with manikins and just jump out at you. 3) No super zombies.. ever. 4) Zombies should appear sympathetic without seeming to be self aware, or thinking zombies. 5) No one is safe 6) Character growth and progression is a must for good or ill. 7)Pacing, pacing, pacing. Keep the show moving forward showing the survivors need to keep moving forward geographically and mentally. 8) Realistic locations and action, we don't need to have our survivors in ridiculous locations for laughs or gags. I.E fun houses. 9) Avoid cliched events, women tripping, becoming scantly clad, people getting eaten during sex. 10) Rick is a force of good, has a strict moral code. This causes him to fail as a leader from time to time, and this is to evolve and change while allowing the character to retain portions of his moral code that makes him who he is. To that end the growth and progression of all characters is a must especially based on events around them for believability sake.

[Wyldwraith]

1) Zombie physiology should conform with as little deviation as possible from the reality that they are mobile CORPSES. No inexplicable/easy copout-based retardation of decay and the accompanying physical breakdown. No human-locating "ESP." No performance of complex, series of actions-based motor functions. (Ie: Clambering over ten foot high chain-link fences at an equal or greater speed than healthy living adults.) 2) Zombies must remain mindless and entirely instinct driven. While the occasional very simple and commonplace action (like the rare zombie grasping and trying to turn a door handle if it detected a very faint "neutral" noise that could have come from behind the door) is all right, flogging the cheesy done-to-death just-add-water instant pathos of "residual memory activities" is to be avoided. A female zombie who was a grocery store cashier in life, and died where she worked should NOT endlessly tinker with the cash register. Undead suburbanite males should not pick up dry-rotted water hoses and make pathetic watering-the-lawn movements. They're dead people, who once had lives and even commonplace habits/routines, the point has been rammed home by countless zombie movies. We don't need further unwanted reminders. If you want to create appropriately reminiscent-of-life moments with individual zombies, have them be encountered in or near their haunt(s) in life. A bus driver zombie found while inactive sitting slumped in the driver's seat until stimulated by the presence of the now-nearby human observers seeing him in said driver's seat is an acceptable level of reminiscence. 3) Zombies should NOT APPLY PROBLEM-SOLVING mental exercises to the pursuit of live prey. If Zombie A is on one side of a muddy bog, and the sighted human is on the other side, Zombie A should proceed in a straight line directly across the bog and possibly become mired in it. Zombie A should NOT skirt the bog's perimeter. Groups of zombies should not move to cut off human escape routes, unless doing so is an incidental byproduct of them closing in on a human from their individual closest-distance-straight-line approaches. If a fleeing human slams a door in a zombie's face it should begin battering on the door, not immediately reach for the doorknob. After several seconds of failure to gain access by means of battering, it is acceptable OCCASIONALLY for a zombie to try fumbling with the door knob. 4) More zombies than are usually depicted should be seen bloated with built-up gases as a byproduct of internal decay, and/or split open from the release of said gases or from gorging on flesh. Unless it is a very arid or very cold environment, all but the oldest zombies should be somehow slimy, gory or otherwise disgustingly moist. The gauntly dessicated zombie should be found in the desert, NOT a Southeastern U.S locale where the year-round humidity is 70%+ and sudden brief precipitation happens multiple times a week on average. 5) Mass should matter. While the iron grip of the attacking zombie is a well-loved icon of the genre, undead 90lbs highschool age-when-died female zombies should be easily flung aside by a healthy adult male if so inclined (assuming said zombie's teeth are not in some portion of said male's anatomy). Conversely, close-quarters grappling between a 140lbs live 20yr old male and a 290lbs 6'5 zombie redneck should in general go badly for the smaller victim. That's what comes to mind right off. Would add more, but my back is troubling me.