Episode One is in the history books, and — overall — I’m satisfied. As a fan of zombie movies/TV shows, I was looking forward to seeing the origin of the “Walking Dead” universe (fans of the original show will remember that Rick Grimes wakes up from a coma only after civilization has been destroyed). I’ve always understood how the “sprinting zombie” can overwhelm a civilization (the movie “World War Z” shows it happening with terrifying clarity), but the groaning, moaning shuffler? Come on.

The first episode does a nice job showing how the zombie apocalypse can sneak up on a city. Start it with the junkies and the homeless, inject a dash of sheer incredulity, sprinkle the whole mixture over a society completely unprepared for meaningful adversity, and you’ve got yourself the end times. In fact, it’s just this atmosphere of realism that was the best thing about the premiere. Of course people would look at videos of the first officer-involved shooting of a zombie as police brutality. Of course everyone would think a junkie was a complete lunatic if he was raving about cannibalism in an abandoned church. Of course the first close encounter with a real zombie would be so mystifying that no one would have the slightest clue what to do. From the viral videos, to the ever-present sounds of helicopters and sirens, the show does an excellent job of depicting a society teetering on the edge — just no one knows it yet.

And that brings me to the bad. Life is about to change — but for a batch of largely unlikable characters. The teenagers are so annoying (either know-it-all teenage annoying or I’m-so-messed-up teenage annoying) that you’d be forgiven for hoping that one or two quickly ends up as zombie chow — just to shock the others out of their narcissism. And the adults? Sheesh. They exude the strange combination of decisiveness and impotence that one sees all the time in public schools (one is a teacher and the other apparently a guidance counselor). Everyone’s busy but going nowhere productive. But from all indications these are the characters we got, so one or more best rise to the occasion, and soon.

Finally, the ugly. Does no one carry a gun in L.A.? Who goes to a junkie haven in the middle of the night to look for blood and gore armed only with a flashlight? Every single character exudes helplessness, and it’s clear that this helplessness is what moves people quickly to desperation. In the Walking Dead universe, living people are just as deadly as zombies, and one gets the sense that the early days of the apocalypse set the tone for all the barbarism that followed, that the quick move to absolute desperation caused people to immediately cross a number of irrevocable moral lines. And in Fear the Walking Dead, we’ll see it happen in real time.

Overall, I give Episode One a solid B. Throw in just one truly likable character and the show is an A- with lots of upward potential. I’ll be watching next week, hoping one of the teens grows up fast.