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

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

I wondered if they implied that Blades let the zombies out of the arena in an effort to overrun the military. Because that's really stupid. For a tv show I mean, not just for the character. We decided that they escaped on their own through brute force (which was implied earlier by the heaving doors?) and he just corralled them.

That was their entire plan, right? Pretty sure it wasn't a coincidence.

yup, totally. the Fear group, with the exception of poor Cliff Curtis, definitely seems far more amoral on the whole. EVIL West Coasters!

S6 premiere of TWD was fun, loved that view of the giant zombie quarry

What a stupid plan! How about roll a couple of armored steamrollers into the quarry and go to fucking town? Or anything where you actually KILL the zombies?! I don't care who's blowing the horn; they all deserve to die.

Also, these zombies are starving. Surely the smell of fresh blood would be much more of a draw than the sound of gunfire?

I can't be the only one that thought FearT.W.D. was terrible. So much unrealistic acting choices, bad writing and missed opportunities. Granted the regular WD had a rough start.

and they even had the same kind of meaningless cast member suicide ending!
well, this one was more important than the one in TWD S1, at least

it was kind of terrible in a lot of ways, but there's enough potential there. had to drag myself through the first few episodes, though, and I still hate the addict character. i think i'm letting my residual affection for Kim Dickens take hold. it's basically a filler series for TWD's breaks/hiatuses.

it's weird because critical/popular opinion seems to be generally terrible from everything I've heard, yet this was the highest rated basic cable series ever?

People like zombies.

I mean, keep in mind, the comic is, what, 80? 100 issues in maybe? And each issue of the comic is essentially half an ep of a show. It just keeps going and going. Who knew, going in, that it is we who are the shambling, insatiable walking dead!

Still have never watched a minute of "Fear..." btw. Feel like I made the right choice, though at this point I'm probably invested enough in the show proper to stick around. it makes me mad, but ... I like zombies.

Yeah, any plan on TWD short of "Let's Molotov-cocktail this here quarry to death" makes no sense whatsoever.

I enjoyed the early-days tension on FTWD, and the confusion, and people figuring out what was going on. But now that everyone knows what's happening and order has completely broken down, I don't see how it's any different from the first season of the main programme.

i'm just kinda glad we'll get to see some more stories that don't involve people running endlessly through the woods of Georgia... for now. surprised we haven't gotten the Fried Desert Zombie yet