The Walking Dead and the "Best" Expression of Humanity

Composed and posted on March 18, 2016

I am a big fan of the zombie apocalypse show, The Walking Dead.  For six seasons now, I have watched this highly unpredictable show not knowing who the "walkers" might get to next.  While it is the most gruesome and violent show on television, for the most part, I found its violence (especially the violence perpetrated by the shows "heroes") to be acceptable within the parameters of what a zombie apocalypse should be.  At least that is the way I felt about the show until the last two episodes.  In the last two episodes, the "heroes" have engaged in acts of cold blooded murder against fellow human beings ostensibly on the premise that those fellow human beings were "bad" people who deserved to die and also because by killing these "bad" people the heroes would have access to more food and supplies and would therefore be better able to survive.  What troubled me, is that the heroes seemed to "cross the line" by conducting a "preemptory strike" against the "bad" people even though those "bad" people had never really done anything to them.  What kind of morality or humanity is being conveyed when the heroes kill people without those people having done them any harm?

I suppose that there will be many that "tsk-tsk" this question as pointing out that it is really just a television show.  However, I have begun to wonder if television shows do not mirror the moral tenor of the times.  Indeed, I have also been in my "Man-Cave" spending a great deal of time with Captain Janeway and the crew of Voyager.  Star Trek Voyager left the air some fifteen years ago, but those fifteen years seem to be "light-years" away.  To a man or woman, the crew of Voyager would have preferred to starve before killing another people for food.  There is a moral tone to the show that is uplifting and is filled with the best expressions of humanity.  It seems so sad that within the last fifteen years that the moral tone of our entertainment has gone from that shown in Voyager to that shown in the latest episodes of The Walking Dead.

Am I wrong in my perceptions?  Are there shows currently on the air that show the best expression of our humanity? If so, please tell me what they are so that I can attempt to "cleanse" myself from what I have recently seen.

Peace,

Everett "Skip" Jenkins