If you have DISH TV, you were screwed.  The third season of The Walking Dead started last night.  Not only has DISH dropped American Movie Classics, but AMC took every possible opportunity during the premiere of The Walking Dead to tell us that people with DISH were missing the premiere of The Walking Dead.  DISH TV subscribers, you have to be feeling good about yourselves, today!  Although you didn’t see it, so you don’t know that AMC pooped on you all night.  Until I just told you, now.  Or unless you’ve gone to The Walking Dead AMC website, where you will see right up there that it’s NOT AVAILABLE ON DISH.

On with the show…time has passed since we left the survivors from Hershel’s farm sitting by the roadside, all out of faith in their leader, Rick, and totally screwed.  We can immediately tell that time has passed because Lori’s pregnancy is showing.  Either that or perpetually bony actress Sarah Wayne Callies has broken down and eaten a meal consisting of more than a Ritz Cracker. 

The show did a good job in the opening scene of showing us that everyone has changed.  No whining.  No fighting.  No moral quandaries for everyone to stop and discuss before they can break and enter and kill zombies and plunder a house.  Until…a slimmer, older, but not taller, Carl finds some tasty dog food for the obviously starving group to eat.  That is where Rick draws the line, wordlessly letting us know that HIS.  PEOPLE.  WILL.  NOT.  EAT.  DOG.  FOOD.  Yay!  Rick still has some of his totally ridiculous principles intact.  Things haven’t changed THAT much.

I don’t want to post a lot of spoilers for the DISH TV subscribers who will have to catch up on Hulu.  And I’m too lazy to recap the entire episode.  I will say that Daryl Dixon seems inexplicably fatter (Norman Reedus, what have you been eating?).  Carl’s head has somehow grown into his father’s hat, although the rest of him hasn’t grown at all.  Rick has smarted up and he seems  to now hate Lori as much as the rest of us do.  The characters still make stupid decisions aplenty, like rushing into situations without having any idea what is ahead of them when they actually have the leisure to make some noise from safe places and find out.  I’m afraid that the setting of the prison isn’t going to be that interesting.  The creators have promised that it’s virtually going to be a character.  It’s going to be a really damned grey character, if that’s true.  I’m also concerned that the creators have given up any semblance of artistic integrity at all and have decided to react to fan cries of, “We’re bored with the farm, kill more zombies!,” by pummeling us all through Season 3 with the killing of zombies.

On the plus side, my favorite soap opera, The Walking Dead is back, and I can’t wait to see Michonne and Andrea make out!

Of course I’m trying to sell you something, so check out my ebook!  Zombies, a bearded lady, and an illegal pet, all on the inside!