Thanks for that mate, that's interesting. I've no problem with a show being more about character development, as long as it's believable (if you know what i mean)
Still, as far as first impressions go, this is one of the best for me, really, really enjoyed it. I thought the musical score for the ep was amazingly good if i'm honest, really helped to set the tone properly, and also thought it was very well acted. Dunno the names of the characters (i'm shit like that) but the bloke who helped grimes (the main guy, is that right?) who had his kid was fucking brilliant.
Spoiler
when he was having trouble trying to shoot his wife was amazing i thought, very believably acted
Yeah, Rick Grimes is the main character. He becomes sort of an unwilling leader of a group of survivors.
You're right about the music. The scene with the bicycle girl and Morgan (played by another English actor Lennie James) with the rifle was extremely well done. Normally in horrors of this kind, the zombie is supposed to be the thing that you fear. You don't feel any kind of remorse for them, but in that scene I felt sorry for that one as it dragged itself along the grass as Rick looked at it with a sorrowful expression.
That's the main difference in this show for me. It goes deeper than just your usual shock value that most horrors go for. The thing that annoyed me about the remake of Dawn of the Dead, for example, was that the lead female character at the start had her little daughter take a chunk out of her husband's neck, who then came after her to kill her, yet no more than 10 minutes after this all happened, it was as if she didn't give a fuck about them. She wasn't distraught in any way which wasn't at all believable. A lot of people rated that film highly. That reason alone is why I don't rate it at all.