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

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

Elevator pitch: man goes into coma in the middle of zombie apocalypse, wakes up months after the zombies have been stopped, can't believe the zombies are gone and convinced people are the real zombies, has to adjust to post zombie world. Soon realizes that everyone actually is a zombie, sharing all of humanity's worst traits.

so does that mean the zombies started out as feral and evolved later into regular humans? or humans devolved and met them in the middle? and why

brains

still have not fucked with the spinoff, but the season 6 premiere is pretty good

Ignoring the quality of fear the..., i would listen to the dude playing the rich guy (Strand?) reading any audiobook he cared to narrate

Carol is always a true delight, isn't she

Yes.

I didn't remember the dr./psychology lady from last season but I like how she (so far) is written to be someone I could of easily bumped into at college as opposed to many unrealistic characters we've already seen.

I'm sorry, but even if this were not the season premiere of one of the top rated, top budgeted shows in years, this one one of the worst episodes of television I've seen in a long time. Glad to see Jennifer Lynch get some work, but it was directed like ass. There's is still absolutely no sense of the geography of this place, or its size, or its population, so the action is literally just a handful of people running around, like some z-grade USA series from the days of yore. The behavior still makes no sense, too - are we really due more of this morality debating about killing? How come half of these people were being slaughtered, and the other half were just hanging around walking and talking, or watching the doctor try to save one person? How many invaders were there, and what scared them off, especially considering the one dude on tower duty with a high powered rifle and scope was not only unable to hit anything but also afraid to try? When will these people toughen up? Plus, I don't even remember what happened to Rick and Abraham - were they exiled? But Father Gabriel who let the zombies in is still hanging around? Just so much pointless stupid and dull going on here. And I love that as soon as the mad zealots retreat, the first order of business is taking out the muffins or whatever, because you know that was on his mind. "Man, of all the time for crazy zealot invaders to attack, it's right after something just went in our one oven!"

I did appreciate that it began with perhaps the single dumbest behavior we've seen on the show yet, arguing over the map in a stopped car with the doors open, fully aware there were zombies coming. Were they looking for the city on the map called Literally Any Place that Is Not Where You Are Right Now?

Waiting for the spin off where the emo kids form a band and travel by van from town to town, putting on shows.

I think I might be done with this one. I just don't get how inexcusably shoddy and lame it is. What season is this, anyway? 10? 20? And where are they again, Virginia? They should get in a boat and sail to some place that's cold and unpopulated. Thus setting the stage for another spin-off - Zombie Pirates!

Gah.

Did you miss last week's episode?

I think these two have been pretty lame, but your timeline is a bit weird. Rick and Abraham are still dealing with the zombie hoard. Last night's episode mostly took place at the same time as last weeks, just what was happening in the town.

Oh shit, see, I didn't even know there was an episode last week! So, yeah, user error I guess, but I can't imagine whatever happened last week would redeem the fundamental shittiness of this episode.

lol didn't you wonder with all the weird black and white flashbacks at the beginning of the episode with the zombie parade

posts >>>>>>>>>>>> facts lol

I did! But at this point it's all starting to blur. I wondered, "wait, why are they using black and white for a flashback? They've never done that before? Is it because it's a season premiere and they think we've forgotten?" Then I could have sworn I saw a black and white shot of ...Rick and the stick guy? And I thought, hmm, that must be because it's a way, way, waaaaaay back flashback, like several season.

But the short answer is that I did not make anything of the black and white, though I did wonder how I missed zombies being walked into what looked like a quarry. But then I immediately thought, ah, who the fuck cares if it didn't look familiar. It's all familiar.

Man, this show reminds me of a bit of Sesame Street I saw last week, where Super Grover builds this awesome Batmobile rocket car, but then wonders why it's not going anywhere. It turns out it has square wheels! Ha, that Grover ...

It just blows my mind that a show with an actual audience and budget that is so rich in potential just can't fucking get it together, season after season. Game of Thrones might be a mess and a mire, but it's such a well-made mess and mire. Walking Dead is totally bush league.

maybe it's time for you to give up on this show, unless you just love hate-watching TV. i mean, you missed the actual season premiere and you're blaming the show for inconsistency, seems like you're just looking for things to harp on now...
the show's been consistently watchable and enjoyable to me for the last 2-3 seasons, even with its flaws. love the production and several of the characters, even if they're not all well-developed

Eh, come on, I only pointed out exactly one inconsistency - where's Rick? et al. The rest had nothing to do with whether or not I saw it last week. You are right, it's definitely time to move on, just as I eventually stopped reading the book. But seriously, at this point, do we have remotely any idea how many people live in Alexandria, or how big the place is? These seem to be fundamentals. And am I wrong that the kill vs. mercy dialectic has pretty much been done to (er) death on this show? Surely they can find some other place to go, literally and metaphorically. There's just so much good TV right now that I find this one's stubborn mediocrity morbidly fascinating.

there are many frustrating things about this show - themes that they keep driving into the ground over and over again, stupidity as repeated plot device, everything about the grimes family as the central protagonists - but idk why people hold it to any higher standard than mindless violence 4 hangovers. thought this week's was probably its best episode in years (and a tantalising vision of a rick-free show). real-time aspect was vg, carol badassery is always welcome and the enid cold open was brilliantly shot. also glad that finally there are traces of wit in the dialogue from tara and eugene.

one thing it does struggle with is repeatedly, its antagonists give good action and villainy but the minute you prod their set-ups they make v little sense. not sure what the wolves' deal is; ok ok they're savages who love killing but how does their group ever expand or how did it even come to be if they attack everything they come across? and their cunning traps of last season don't jive with the bloodlust mayhem we saw.

don't know for sure but it seems like they're kidnapping people and forcing/training/torturing them to become initiates (this is what I implied from that guy saying to Morgan that they didn't "choose" this life) and there had to be some reason they were bothering to chain up some of the victims, unless they're also cannibals

also, though they seem to have to not gone ahead with the idea that Enid let them in - they were clever enough to scout out the town in advance and attack them when half of the town was distracted with the zombie parade, so I think there is more detail there that we don't know yet. we have yet to see who their "pack leader" is, i'm guessing it'll be another Governor-type, closer to the original psychopathic comics version

that cold open was pretty well done

idk why people hold it to any higher standard than mindless violence 4 hangovers

agreed m/l - and the fact that the entire fifth season and the premiere of this one (still need to see episode 2) have been so well-made and interesting (and occasionally downright compelling and ambitious, especially imo the first half of season 5) for what they are is the best you can hope for. this isn't prestige television. it's genre trash that is about as well-done as it can be and generally isn't stupid anymore even when more than a few of its characters annoyingly still are.

I did appreciate that it began with perhaps the single dumbest behavior we've seen on the show yet, arguing over the map in a stopped car with the doors open, fully aware there were zombies coming. Were they looking for the city on the map called Literally Any Place that Is Not Where You Are Right Now?

I am going way out of my way to explain things to someone who clearly just can't be arsed enough to pay attention, but they weren't arguing over a map, they were trying to change a fuse in the car to get it started. The dialogue per subtitles:

Woman: It says the ignition switch fuse is at location 27.
Man: Alright, 27, I need to know where that is.
Woman: Right here.
Man: OK, this one's blown. What's this one, the red one?
Enid: Mom, Dad, we got to go.
Man: Come on, come on.
Woman: We see them. Just need to find a fuse so we can start the car. Almost got it, honey, location six. That's turn signal lamps and stop lamps.
Man: OK, we can live without turn signals.
Enid: Dad, they're com - - -

(Cut to Enid in car, windows covered with blood.)

Some of it is mixed low, but even with my shitty ears I heard "Just need to find a fuse so we can start the car" when watching.

the fact that the entire fifth season and the premiere of this one (still need to see episode 2) have been so well-made and interesting (and occasionally downright compelling and ambitious, especially imo the first half of season 5) for what they are is the best you can hope for. this isn't prestige television. it's genre trash that is about as well-done as it can be and generally isn't stupid anymore even when more than a few of its characters annoyingly still are.

If I bailed after season 3 because I couldn't take the general dullness/repetitiveness/theme-hammering (after really liking season 1), is it even worth picking this up again, or is this just a show I do not like?

saw that immediately too.

And I love that as soon as the mad zealots retreat, the first order of business is taking out the muffins or whatever

he was in the kitchen when it dinged and I bet it smelt good

...

there is still "stupid" things in this show. a guy at work can't believe how naïve the Alexandrians are. I told him, "what about how evil and dumb (no guns) this wolf pack is"?

slothroprhymes is dead on about this being genre trash that's done very well. lex pretend is spot on with stupidity being a plot device. I think to enjoy this show you have to suspend your disbelief to more than just zombies and like a good amount of the characters.

my problem with fear the walking dead was that that I had a harder time suspending my disbelief and caring about any main characters. also, several other problems

oops, I didn't notice eephus! posted before me

Fear was way more of a drag. part of it was that there wasn't an excuse to actually have a zombie kill every episode, and the other part is that most of the characters were plain annoying or motivation-less (especially all the teenagers). But the introduction of campy devil suit guy is a good direction I think

eephus - the show on an episode-to-episode basis is definitely less boring than it was in S2 and S3, but the theme hammering is still there, so probably not worth it. OTOH, it's way better than season 1 at this point IMO in terms of straight up zombie action

FTWD was actually terrrrrrible, my bf insisted on watching it to the end out of, idk, masochism or something. they actually skipped the most interesting time period between the initial outbreak and the military taking over! but the characters were all just...stupid and awful and boring. i think the dad might have actually been worse than the junkie son.