I’ve been aware of Robert Kirkman’s “The Walking Dead” for quite some time now, but I was always hesitant to read it because the idea of a zombie comic that never ended seemed boring as hell. Turns out it was the complete opposite. After AMC announced that they had commissioned a pilot based on Kirkman’s book (and directed by Frank Darabont, no less), I finally decided to give it a try, only to end up tearing through the 60-plus issues in a matter of months. Suffice it to say, I was hooked, and have been a dedicated reader ever since. It also changed my feelings about the upcoming television series, however, as I was now inclined to be somewhat protective of the source material. But after watching the pilot episode, it’s clear that fans won’t have to worry too much, because “The Walking Dead” is not only in good hands, but it translates perfectly to TV.

The show didn’t waste any time in setting its graphic tone, either, with sheriff Rick Grimes shooting a little zombie girl in the head while out searching for gas. Of course, the world wasn’t always swarming with the walking dead, and we get an appropriate flashback to the days before the zombie outbreak when Rick was just a normal police officer alongside his partner and best friend Shane. But after Rick gets shot in a firefight and falls into a coma in the hospital, he awakes weeks later to discover he’s all alone. The hospital is completely empty save for a few dead bodies lying on the ground, and when he goes outside, there are piles of carcasses all over the place. An unsettling sight for sure, but not nearly as frightening as seeing a decayed upper torso that’s still crawling around on the ground.

If Rick doesn’t seem that concerned with figuring out how a dead person can still be alive, it’s because all he cares about at the moment is making sure his wife Lori and son Carl are still safe. But there’s no sign of them at their house, and before he can look anywhere else, he gets a shovel straight to the face, knocking him unconscious. When he comes to, Rick finds himself tied to a bed post and in the company of a man named Morgan (the always awesome Lennie James) and his son Duane, who are immediately concerned that his bandaged wound is more than just the gunshot he claims it to be. Rick eventually convinces them that he’s not only still human, but has no idea what’s going on, so Morgan fills him in on the basics: people are dying and coming back to life (whom he refers to as “walkers”), and the only way to kill them is by hitting or shooting them in the head. But gunshots make noise, and noise attracts walkers – hordes of them, in fact, including Morgan’s dead wife, who continues to haunt him and his son by roaming outside the house where they’ve set up camp.

Morgan also tells Rick that if his wife and son are still alive – which Rick believes based on the fact that clothes and photos are missing from his home – they’re most likely in Atlanta, where the government was telling survivors to go to after the initial outbreak. But before he heads south, Rick takes Morgan and Duane to the police station to enjoy a hot shower and stock up on weapons. They part ways shortly after, and Morgan heads back to the house with one mission in mind: to end his wife’s misery. That entire scene was heartbreaking to say the least, and it’s only a taste of the kind of heavy character drama that Kirkman’s comic regularly delivers.

Meanwhile, Rick heads for Atlanta in his police cruiser and sends out a distress call over the radio for anyone that might be listening. He doesn’t get a response, but what Rick doesn’t realize is that someone did hear his call – a survivor camp located somewhere near the city that includes Shane, Lori and Carl. Lori is currently petitioning a plan to put signs up on the highway warning incoming travelers of the zombies, but Shane refuses to allow her to put herself in any danger. And before you could commend Shane for being a great best friend, he shows his true intentions by sharing a kiss with Lori in their tent. They both clearly believe that Rick is dead, but that’s still a little early to be moving in on your buddy’s wife, no?

It certainly can’t end well, but Rick has much bigger problems at the moment. His car has just run out of gas, and after stealing a horse to carry him the rest of the way, he arrives in Atlanta to discover that it’s become a ghost town. Or at least, that’s what it looks like from the outside. But when he begins attracting the attention of some zombies, and a few quickly turns into a few hundred, Rick is knocked off his horse and sent scrambling to safety, just barely managing to pull himself into an abandoned tank to hide out. Surrounded by hundreds of the walking dead outside, it seems like Rick’s final hours may be upon him… only to hear the voice of another human come over the radio: “Hey, dumbass. You, in the tank. You cozy in there?” And if that didn’t hook you in for another episode, then maybe “The Walking Dead” isn’t for you, but it’s only going to get better from here.

“Somebody asked me a crazy question today, like, ‘I heard that there was a rumor that Rick Springfield was supposed to be doing this one,'” said McBride, when I talked to him during the January TCA press tour. “I was, like, ‘What are you, goofy? The Human Target in a walker?’ I remember that old show…and that was pretty bad. We’re the 2.0 version of that, and it will make you forget about that thing.”

Based on the episodes I’ve seen, I’d have to agree with McBride…and so, it would seem, would our man John Paulsen, who described “Human Target” as “a fun ride.”

“Even though the series is heavy on action,” said Paulsen, “it has a lighthearted, fun feel to it — think Jack Bauer with a sense of humor — which is underlined by Chance’s charm (with his usually female clientele) and the dynamic between Winston and Guerrero, who do not particularly like each other.”

Guerrero, for those of you who haven’t yet checked out the series, is Chance’s technical expert, and he’s played by Jackie Earle Haley. Between this role and his memorable turn as the somewhat psychotic Rorschach in “Watchmen,” you’d think that he was paying off DC Comics for all the great gigs they’ve been providing him…and, indeed, in January, I asked him outright if this was the case.

“I should be, right?” he laughed. “Yeah, I’ve got them on the kickback plan.”

“I’d never been a huge comic book fan,” he said. “Growing up, I could never really get into them. When I was a kid, I was a super-slow reader, and when I’d open up a comic book, I couldn’t figure out what to look at first. The pictures? The words? Just the pacing of it kind of threw me off. Cut to years later, though, and I absolutely fell in love with ‘Watchmen.’ I mean, I became a ‘Watchmen’ fan, and since then, I’ve really begun to understand and appreciate comic books and graphic novels, especially the more grown-up ones, I guess you’d say. Right now, I’d almost have to say that my favorite comic book…and this will surprise you…is ‘V for Vendetta.’ It’s because it’s…it’s literature, man. It’s just an absolutely phenomenal, thought-provoking piece of work.”

Whether or not Haley feels the same way about the source material which inspired his current series remains unconfirmed, but when it comes to watching Fox’s “Human Target,” you’ll almost certainly enjoy it more without having read the original comic books. Why waste time nitpicking about continuity issues between the two mediums when you can enjoy each on their own merits? Having seen the next two episodes of “Human Target,” I can tell you that, while it has very little to do with anything that’s seen print in the past, it’s still a fun hour of adventure, humor, and even a bit of drama. Mr. Paulsen had observed that, as of when he composed his piece, “the show hasn’t done much in the way of a serialized plot, so new viewers could pick it up without missing much,” and while that still remains more or less true, the series is finally getting around to delving into the mysterious background of Christopher Chance, played by Mark Valley.

On March 10th, Chance reunites with a fiery former flame (played by Leonor Varela) when he is called to South America to rescue an archeologist (Kris Marshall) targeted by a South American army and a deadly bounty hunter, and although Chance’s past isn’t exactly what you’d call an open book by episode’s end, it does give you some insight into his romantic history. The episode on the 17th, however, is arguably the best installment of the series to date. Lennie James, late of “Jericho,” guest stars as Chance’s former partner, and although you arguably learn more about James’s character than you do Chance’s, it’s an episode that’s filled with both action and emotion. In addition to finding Chance getting caught up with the FBI, it’s also notable for expanding Guerrero’s storyline, which means that – woo-hoo! – Haley will hopefully be taking more of a spotlight in future episodes. Not that he and McBride aren’t consistently contributing to the overall success of the series, but any chance to get more Jackie Earle Haley is a chance we’re ready to take.

Haven’t checked out “Human Target” yet? Now’s the time, especially with upcoming episodes featuring guest appearances from Armand Assante and Lee Majors.

“Human Target” returns to Fox on Wednesday, March 10th, at 8 PM.

Once again, I think you have to give AMC kudos for their boldness as a network, because not only have they decided to re-imagine “The Prisoner,” thereby putting themselves in line to take no end of flak from the highly obsessive fans of the original series, but they’re even offering up the original show on AMCtv.com for those who haven’t seen it yet. (They also gave all of the critics in attendance a copy of the DVD box set of the series, since we’re clearly far too busy to watch television online.)

Confident much?

Well, you probably would be, too, if you could lay claim to having secured Jim Caviezel as your new Number Six and Sir Ian McKellen as the devious Number Two, then filled out the cast with Lennie James (“Jericho”), Ruth Wilson (“Jane Eyre”), and Jamie Campbell Bower (“Sweeney Todd,” “RocknRolla”).

It’s still going to take some convincing to get the old-school “Prisoner” fans to accept that the seaside of Portmeirion has been thrown out in favor of a new Village located in the midst of a desert setting, of course, but director Nick Hurran is clearly pleased with this new interpretation of the concept, which still focuses on a man trapped somewhere from which he cannot escape.

“The themes have the issue of family, of love, of control and of freedom in the same way,” said Hurran. “Freedom of choice, how much should we be allowed to have in our society of freedom. So, in that way, there are parallels of someone leaving a world and waking up in this extraordinary place for a reason that wants to be discovered. As in the original, there’s The Village. It’s an ideal world where everything will be provided for you. For us, you’ll be endlessly happy. Everything will be fulfilled for you, as long as you don’t ask questions. You won’t have the freedom to ask why, to say, ‘I’d like to leave now.’ And Six is the only one who questions that and says, ‘No, I’m not going to just take a number and join your marvelous world. I’m going to ask why and why is everybody else like this.’ We follow his challenge to question it and try and find out.”

McKellen, who conceded that he didn’t watch the original “Prisoner” when it first aired and only caught it in reruns years later, seems happy with the fact that AMC’s re-interpretation will be far less open-ended than its predecessor.

“One of the characteristics of the original was that in 17 episodes, the questions that you were invited to ask as to why and who is in charge and what are their motives, was never really answered, hence the enduring fascination,” said McKellen. “The viewers are still guessing as to what was the meaning of it all. Well, this is different. By episode six, you know everything about The Village: Where it came from, where it’s going to, who created it, why they did it and what it’s like to actually live there.”

McKellen also agrees with the decision to abandon the unabashedly British nature of the original. “Even though the location was in Wales, it didn’t feel like that,” he said. “It felt like a little English Disney place. Frankly, I’m more attracted to (screenwriter) Bill Gallagher’s notion of ‘The Prisoner’ and The Village and it’s on a world scale. The implications are for us all. To have an American character at the center of it seems appropriate in a way it would not have been to that curious English feeling that saturated the original series.”

For his part, Caviezel had never seen, let alone heard of, the original series. “I was actually set to shoot another film, and without going into that, there was a little glitch in the financing. And that day, I get a phone call from my agent saying, ‘You need to read these things that Ian McKellen is doing.” And all I heard was ‘Ian McKellen.’ The first two episodes that I read were phenomenal, and he says, ‘Well, wait until you get the next two.’ I had talked to AMC before on another project, and this one, to me, was a film for television and no different. To me, it was like shooting a regular film with a brilliant filmmaker.”

As for Lennie James, someone asked him when he was planning to lighten up with his choice of roles, given that’s he coming off “Jericho” and going right into a miniseries where paranoia remains a constant element.

“It just seemed like it was the next thing to do, having played a man that no one had any idea who he was or what he was doing, to go on to play a man who has no idea and doesn’t know what he’s doing,” said James, with a grin. “It’s a natural step, really. I don’t know what I’m going to do next, but he’s not going to know what he’s doing.”

To close, we’ll play a little of the ol’ good news / bad news…and we might as well start with the bad news, just to get it out of the way: Patrick McGoohan will not be in it. Not even a little bit.

“We asked (McGoohan) to play a cameo in the piece, because it’s the perfect thing for him,” said executive producer Trevor Hopkins. “Although he loved it, loved the casting that we got in it, he wasn’t able to travel and take part in it.”

It’s sad, of course, though at least this will give the new version of “The Prisoner” the opportunity to fully stand…or fall…on its own.

And the good news…?

Rover will be in it. Sort of.

At first, Hurran was evasive, saying, “Well, that’s very tricky. Who knows?” Eventually, however, he committed enough to make it pretty certain that some equivalent of Rover will show up.

“Everybody, the first thing they do is go, ‘Is the the white ball or Rover there?'” he said, with a laugh. “In the original, there’s some marvelous stories of how they had spent an awful lot of money making some fabulous contraption that would hover like a hovercraft and then sink down below the water like a submarine and then climb the walls of a building when required. And on the first day of filming, I think they say it came out, went into the water, sank, and never came up again.”

Hurran paused for a moment, then continued, “We might have had a similar sort of thing happening. But I couldn’t possibly say at the moment. But a rover may make an appearance. He’s a big part of what is ‘The Prisoner,’ I think.”

“The Prisoner” will air on AMC later in 2009, with the precise premiere date still very much TBD.