AMC zombie series from Frank 'Majestic' Darabont - The Walking Dead

Love me some NIN, but that intro was unintentionally hilarious. Though to be honest I expected the run mix to be, like, LMFAO or something, especially since his van mix was total boots-n-cats.

Great ending, though. While I find it absolutely implausible that it's only our people who have debilitating streaks of paranoid PTSD and not these gated community yuppies, or that the bad guys are also bad acting weasel types, or that ... well, a whole bunch of stuff, this inevitable conflict is playing out with a pretty compelling sense of drama. The downside, of course, is that, what, there is one episode left? With all sorts of big things set up or waiting to happen? That's one of this show's worst habits, building to a sensible season finale that spills into the next season. That's one reason the show can never find sure footing.

i'm guessing the finale's extended length (90 minutes) is an attempt to avoid that cliffhanger/transition finale potential pitfall, but who knows

i'm just hoping they don't slide the 'W' explanation into next season and we at least start on that already
also wtf happened to Lennie?

err, Morgan

hopefully he'll be back for the finale. his appearances have always been at logical beginning/ending points (premiere, midseason finale) so that would make sense. he's def one of the most intriguing characters they've developed even in his brief appearances - "clear" is my favorite episode of this series for a reason

I keep thinking the W is an upside down M and it's Morgan who's doing that.

that's what Yvette Nicole Brown said on Talking Dead, but it wouldn't make sense to me - they ran into the W zombies back when they hit Noah's hometown, and it's pretty unlikely that Morgan got there ahead of them (nevermind doing all this alone...)

it's tony wonder

Because we just saw Michonne kinda going mental, too, my guess is she knocked him out strategically. Because don't forget, there is also a mess of guns Carol hid somewhere. Methinks it will be a don't throw me in the briar patch situation, where Rick is kicked out and reconvenes with a few others, then doofus coward dude with his own buried gun (guess this is a thing?) does something stupid to spark it all off. The question is whether they stay put in this place, or the walls come down and the zombie swarm advances

Though my guess is still there's a fight of some sort, then some bigger, badder dude or group shows up, our heroes and the yuppies look at each other, then it goes black and we have to wait several months for another rocky start to a new season.

Kinda ridic that this show has once again totally failed to illustrate how many people life in this town. In only takes a couple of establishing shots. By the end of the hospital arc the shitty setup made it seem like there were like 10 people there, most of them cops. They're not doing much better with this town. At least the Governor's town seemed obviously populated, and sure, maybe there are only a handful of people in Alexandria (the better to conserve chocolate chips/alcohol, not to mention LOL power to operate the garage door - the notion that people would use electric garage doors in the zombie apocalypse is just ... ), but if they established that there are only a couple of dozen people there then it makes the appearance of civilization that much more delusional. But this show has even been bad showing us what most of our heroes are up to. Maggie, Abraham, Eugene, et al. Where's Gabriel after going full end of days with Deanna?

thought this week's was one of those rare walking dead episodes which i thoroughly enjoyed with almost no qualms and no annoyance. often i like the "moving the chess pieces into place for the finale" episodes better because they throw up so many questions and possibilities, while the actual grand finale is as likely to just be the writers clumsily knocking the chess pieces over.

i'd agree that there are plenty of conversations we haven't been thrown that you'd think might have been crucial but i don't think we need to be shown every character's waking move - that episode was pretty packed, happy to assume maggie, abraham et al are just getting on with quotidian stuff.

sasha's continued meltdown is really emotionally compelling imo - one of the few times in this series where it hasn't seemed jarring or OTT. maybe because she's only being reckless w/r/t herself, not putting others at risk. kudos to the actress too. very much enjoyed the ~sisterhood of michonne and rosita going after her. those three are good together! as are aaron and daryl! would watch spin-offs involving those groups.

less into the crazy rick soap opera at home - jessie is an extremely boring blonde white cipher atm, pete threatening her in front of rick is so not how abusers behave.

i assume whatever this creepy outside threat is will interrupt whatever the fallout is of crazy rick vs alexandria and they will ~unite

i think my biggest issue w/alexandria is that it is completely implausible for any community - especially one which has obviously been actively running reconnaissance missions and supply runs - to be as comedically incompetent and complacent as they're being depicted, no matter how lucky they are. and can they make their mind up as to whether deanna is the super-smart leader she was introduced as or a deluded naïf? i feel like the contrast between their relative softness and rick's group could have been more subtly drawn

I don't think Deanna is a naif at all. we've only got one moment where we get to see her not explicitly reacting/playing to another person, after Sasha expresses her anger at the naivete of the town, where Deanna actually seems to be truly angered. Everything she does, down to ignoring the "sorry" casserole, is politically calculated. She's been very deliberately managing the town's outlook to maintain this optimistic society. (Why the recruiters and that one girl are "outsiders" is that they really understand what the world is like outside the walls.) I get the impression that she's incredibly shrewd, far more so than her comic book counterpart.

I dunno. Burning the sympathy note was a pretty dramatic statement. But also failure to recognize that her son and his goon were ridiculously inept, even dangerous, demonstrates some pretty poor judgement for a supposed smooth operator. Basically, we've had a lot of her speechifying about how well she reads people, but each of the few episodes she's been in have pointed the opposite direction. And given the erratic nature of the show, there's really no way they're going to explore that irony in any depth, if at all. Even her husband seems like a clueless short-sighted idiot. Just another example of the show occasionally stumbling on a good idea than squandering it due to lack of interest and/or ability. Like, I assume the rest of the team has been up to its own stuff, sure. But the lack of scale and detail about the operation of Alexandria - again, much less info given us than the Governor's town several seasons ago, or even the cannibal community - is just as bad as this show's total inability to establish its characters as much more than cogs or ciphers. Because yeah, I sort of like the Sasha (or even Rick) snaps arc, but the bigger question is how all these other people have kept from going equally batshit, what with the zombie apocalypse and people being torn apart on a regular basis and rape and murder and so on. If the show were more patient, or better paced, maybe it would have had a chance to explore these things before rushing forward at top speed into another dead end.

this was a good finale, maybe the best finale (finales and premieres are often a strength of this show even in weak seasons, e.g. season 2, exception to rule season 3 finale), and one of the best episodes thus far. all around i'd have to say this was the best season by a pretty significant margin.

i have no doubt that plausibility police will or at least could go buckwild about certain things that happened (no one noticing the gate being left open, glenn's lil dance in the woods with that cowardly alexandria dude & how it does not meet what would be its logical conclusion, how do the wolves maintain power for their walker trap, et. al. ad infinitum) but the final product worked for me, and has worked this whole season so w/e. it's not like how season 3 was such a narrative/thematic/character-arc mess that i couldn't help focusing on details that would otherwise be covered by my ability to suspend disbelief in a genre show about zombies

i have to admit that dumbass not even bothering to look back to see if the gate was closed was incredibly stupid
happy to see Morgan finally make it to the main cast (not officially, but c'mon) and bringing mysterious kung-fu skills

dumbass guard or father gabriel? bc gabriel was clearly having a mental breakdown, him not paying attention to that didn't surprise me & i wondered if it was intentional. if you mean the guard though, yea, totally fair crit.

yeah, the guard

Haven't seen the finale yet, but just wanted to come here to make fun of the title "Fear the Walking Dead." First of all, it sounds like the 5th sequel in a lame series, like "Beneath the Fall of the Rise of the Planet of the Apes" or "Return of the Blind Dead" or something. Also, what the hell else would you do but fear the Walking Dead? Hug? Tickle? Taunt? It's the Walking Dead, you fear them! They'll eat you!

Anyway, will watch them fuck up this finale some time this week, hopefully.

Also, what the hell else would you do but fear the Walking Dead? Hug? Tickle? Taunt?

ummm clearly you did not see the last 5 minutes of shaun of the dead bc you can definitely lol at them when chained and on MXC-esque challenge platforms

Fair enough. You can also apparently date them, train them, etc. But in the context of classic shambling man-eating corpse zombie horror, you pretty much fear them. Maybe the spin-off will be a comedy?

Re the guard: an awful lot of ppl're that sloppy/useless tbh

That was really really tense. I stopped watching this for a while but caught the Last few episodes. I'm intrigued enough that I'll probably watch start of next season.

But are they really going to split every season now?

it's more profitable for the network in terms of ad revenue to split them in half, yeah

How do they get more ad revenue that way?

Is this something AMC does with every successful drama?

shit. my bad - i'm thinking of why AMC chose to split the final mad men/breaking bad seasons over multiple years, because in those cases the advertiser pays the same rate they'd pay for a full season's worth of advertising (not to mention all the contractual nonsense).

basically for any show longer than 12 or 13 episodes per season, a lot of networks have been splitting seasons in half for a while now - I think lost might've been the biggest example.

*biggest/earliest.

the ratings are so massive for WD that they are trying to stretch them out over as much time as possible, I guess. it kinda baffles me tbh

dropping the episodes into the higher rated months is m/l the strategy as far as i understand it. more people watching tv in october/november/february/march than during the holidays

do they still use "sweeps" months to determine ad buy rates? i think so, which is why new episodes always arrive in Nov/Feb/May. cable shows are usually 13 eps per season anyway, so them getting a "back nine" seems to only happen for hit shows

i'm glad they'll have a spinoff show to make the summer breaks seem less long

Opening scenes of Fear the Walking Dead feature possibly the most annoying shirt ever to be won by a man

Fear the Walking Dead is terrible, if the first episode is anything to go by. Kim Dickens is great but wasted here; hoping they let this run as a short season and she shows up on the regular series.

thought it was OK. the druggie kind of annoying (that shirt was some weak, weak.. fan service?) but i like the others

Fear the Walking Dead is terrible, if the first episode The Walking Dead is anything to go by.

Haven't seen this yet, but is this supposed to be a sustainable series or just a stand-alone stopgap? Based on what I've read, if The Walking Dead was dude's "what happens next?" idea, then this seems like a series based on the first 20 minutes or so of "Dawn of the Dead," with a city setting, on the verge of collapse.

Haven't seen this yet, but is this supposed to be a sustainable series or just a stand-alone stopgap?

I think a zombie anthology series could be great - one episode or a few with a group of characters in a different part of the country/world, which would let them have real stakes (anyone or everyone could die at any minute, where we know that certain characters on The Walking Dead can't die) but I doubt it will happen.

first episode smashed cable drama pilot ratings records, this'll be around for as long as the zombie thing is still a thing

Not good that the first 3 characters to be zombified and then dead were the 3 black characters so far introduced.

Having said that, am surprised to be enjoying this as much as i am.

I wish there was a World War Z budget for upcoming street attack scenes.

WWZ zombie FX were one of the worst aspects of that mess.

james: yeah, it's not good, but this show still has a better track record on minorities... so far. i feel like they're actively making an effort with this at least

also lol/sigh? at the people protesting police brutality, but hey it's actually justified 'cuz it's a zombie
the cops seem to already know what's up, from the coverups and that shady looking one hoarding water

Read a couple of reviews of the first couple of episodes, and ... I think I'm just going to skip this. Peak modern zombie may be the (fast paced) start to the "Dawn" remake" and the "(slow paced) start to "28 Days Later." The rest of this stuff, including the rest of those movies, has all been pretty disappointing.

https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3031/3073753661_d6fed27c6c.jpg
"Excuse me, do you have any oxy?"

wow TWD may be a very stupid show that i continue to watch because i'm often hungover but FTWD is properly terrible

such boring bland whitebread characters! will this show ever have a character who has a way with a bon mot or a sense of humour? and why does no one ever communicate important information to each other? "tell me" cries the teenage daughter. "TELL HER" i yell at the screen. *mother stares portentously into space, does not tell anyone anything*

also two zombie attacks in two episodes is a poor ratio esp when the only entertainment value will be watching these people get ate

only watched the pilot but boy was it dreadful. I love Kim Dickens but not enough to watch this.

https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3031/3073753661_d6fed27c6c.jpg
"Excuse me, do you have any oxy?"

― trishyb, Tuesday, September 1, 2015 8:47 AM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The combo of looks + junkie + plus the stolen clothes reminds me more of Fear and Loathing Depp, but with hair.

Writing for this is terrible so far. At least they turned the zombie gore up a wee bit for ep3

The first four episodes of Fear of the Walking Dead is so much better than the original series based on the comic. If people are watching this show for zombie attacks, there are more than enough movies for that. What I love about the Walking Dead, is how people live day to day in a post apocalyptic world, the fact that zombie brought about this world is not why I watch it. For me the bigger question concerning this whole series is how to be a good person when the world ends, and what makes a bad guy? What really makes me mad is only doing a half series. Are writers afraid to commit themselves to fleshing out a full season? If this show gets cancelled I will lose faith in our viewing public. But maybe I have no idea what people want from television.

it's smashing ratings records for new shows on cable, it's not going anywhere

i was happy when the mother slapped the crap out of her son. i'm not sure that's what the show was going for, but i'm already really tired of that kid

pretty interesting move to have your protagonists directly cause the deaths of hundreds of people and be all nbd