You know it's hard to identify the difference between the matte stainless steel and Colt's proprierty matte nickle finish. It was a special nickle finish that was developed by Colt and it wore like iron. I used to own a Colt Trooper Mk III with that nickle finish. I had the revolver for twenty years and the finish never did show any real wear. Stuff was amazing and from a distance you would think it was stainless steel. But I went with stainless steel just because. I figure the story takes place in the south (humid and hot) and it makes sense that a cop would want a stainless steel revolver due to the heat, moisture, time spent in a holster and exposure to things like body fluids.

I just watched all six episodes of the first season yesterday night, and another this morning. Highly enjoyable series, even though I'm not big into zombie fare (which seems to make me unique amongst American gun owners).

What's really funny is that I also watched "Chris Ryan's Strike Back" last week, in which Andrew Lincoln (the actor who plays Grimes in "The Walking Dead") had a starring role. I remember thinking to myself, "Where I have I seen this dude before", and then being surprised when I looked him up on IMDB and found out he was an Englishman.

I'm getting tired of the zombie themed stories. This one showed more character development, but I wished it had more shootouts

Eh, I was a little bit disappointed by the lack of shootouts at first, but eventually I was won over by the human elements, which is a good thing.

Good characters and different formula made this great, most zombie movies are formulaic with stereotypical characters that are mostly 2d and emotionless. This was a refreshing difference.

What I like best is the way that this series conveys the psychological toll of the situation upon the characters (i.e. the guy who digs graves, the way that many of them become hard-drinkers when they enter the CDC, etc.) Even the love triangle, which is something I would find normally find boring and distracting, is done well.

In most other zombie stories, the drama would come from plot devices and the zombies themselves, and the characters would be mostly static (good guys are always brave and wise, self-serving cowards always act cowardly, etc.) Whereas the characters in this show all become changed - for either good or bad - regardless of how they start out. Shane (Jon Bernthal's character) goes from being a leader to an unstable, hot-headed alcoholic, while Daryl (Norman Reedus' character) is slowly becoming less of a racist misanthrope and more of a team player. At the same time, none of them change so much that it's unbelievable or out-of-character.