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Fear the Walking Dead

great_bay

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Jennifer, what do you think of the comic version Walking Dead?
 

Totenkindly

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I tried to read portions of it in the bookstore once and didn't feel as much dramatic arc as in the show. (The show has some flaws, but it has the benefit of having a stock of characters and the general plot, so the writers can tweak things -- i.e., "polish the draft" to accentuate the drama).

So ultimately I haven't really read that much of it. I think it probably does better with shock value and doing things outside the box, than with dramatic arc.
 

Totenkindly

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Pretty decent pilot episode. this show is definitely the slower, psychological burn and they spend a lot of time establishing the characters and their relation to each other.

I'm a big fan of Cliff Curtis (the dad) and Kim Dickens has done solid work over the years but has finally started to be widely known. (As a weird tangent, HBO was running Hollow Man with Kevin Bacon this month; I started to watch it, the movie sucked and I turned it off shortly after he went invisible, but Kim was in that as well... that was around 2000.)

I haven't seen Frank Dillane in much, but his work as Tom Riddle in the later Harry Potter movies always stuck with me -- he was rather mesmerizing even as a teenager.



He actually gets the most to do in the pilot in terms of eccentric character behaviors and he's quite good at it, physically and emotionally -- he really does come across as a rather strung-out junkie who's still accessible as a character.

I don't recognize the daughter.

Anyway, the show starts with the very beginning of the outbreak where no one is even sure what's going on, and it seems pretty solid so far in terms of the writing and acting.
 

Tellenbach

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The only likeable characters are the two zombies who don't say anything but look zombie-ish. Can't stand any of the main characters, especially the effeminate Johnny Depp clone. I thought I was watching 21 Jump Street in the opening scene. Let's hope all these lousy characters are killed off by episode 2.
 

Totenkindly

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The only likeable characters are the two zombies who don't say anything but look zombie-ish. Can't stand any of the main characters, especially the effeminate Johnny Depp clone. I thought I was watching 21 Jump Street in the opening scene. Let's hope all these lousy characters are killed off by episode 2.

It would make more sense for you to simply not waste your time watching a show you obviously hate.
 

Tellenbach

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The premise is fine; the setting is ok. The characters are terrible. One doesn't know if a show is terrible without watching a few episodes.
 

Totenkindly

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vague run-down of episode 2:

- Johnny-Depp stand-in spends much of the episode in withdrawal puking.

- Revisit of LA riots; the police are shooting beggars for good reason but it's viewed as brutality (understandably) because they don't explain anything.

- Viewers complain about wiping out the black cast; that's understandable as well, you'd think they'd have jiggered that up a bit. Latino/Hispanic cast still running strong.

- The families are split up, half trapped in the riot epicenter, the other at the fringe.

- Who is this kid Tobias who apparently will show up in Season 3 as some lone wolf survivalist, saving the group?
 

Tellenbach

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I'm hoping Tobias ends up in this season's TWD; that'd be cool.

It's true; we do riot for fun in L.A.

What bugged me this episode: Travis and Wife/Ex have 3 kids and none of them ever listen to him. Can we please have just one good kid we can cheer on (Tobias is cool but I don't think we'll see much more of him.)?
 

SensEye

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The show is OK so far. But at the rate things appear to be deteriorating, LA will be a smoking ruin by the end of season 1. Where are they going to go from there? If civilization collapses and we end up with pockets of survivors scratching out a living in a sea of zombies, how is that any different from The Walking Dead (especially the early seasons)?

OTOH, if they drag out the societal collapse too long, I think it might get a bit boring. During episode one I was already thinking "let's get this party started". So I'll be a bit curious how the story directors are going to approach this. It's going to be tough to keep it fresh. PS> I have no idea if this has been covered in comic book land, I'm completely out of touch with that side of things.

They are being a bit inconsistent/vague with how the plague is spreading. That is bugging me a bit if this is an origin story. The drug pusher guy seemed perfectly fine, they he gets shot and turns. The neighbor guy seems ill but not injured, then he turns. Boyfriend guy is ill but clearly due to a bite. And why the hell is he hiding that? He has no idea he is going to zombify so there is no motive for him to be in denial. He should be all "some psycho bit me" and that's why I am ill.
 

Totenkindly

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The show is OK so far. But at the rate things appear to be deteriorating, LA will be a smoking ruin by the end of season 1. Where are they going to go from there? If civilization collapses and we end up with pockets of survivors scratching out a living in a sea of zombies, how is that any different from The Walking Dead (especially the early seasons)?

Yeah, I'm not sure (as it proceeds) how they can find and keep a different angle than the regular 16-episode show. Right now it's interesting to watch the initial deterioration, but we're not really getting much explanation on what actually happened to trigger this "disease."

OTOH, if they drag out the societal collapse too long, I think it might get a bit boring. During episode one I was already thinking "let's get this party started". So I'll be a bit curious how the story directors are going to approach this. It's going to be tough to keep it fresh. PS> I have no idea if this has been covered in comic book land, I'm completely out of touch with that side of things.

I have no idea either, I'm not a TWD comic reader.

They are being a bit inconsistent/vague with how the plague is spreading. That is bugging me a bit if this is an origin story. The drug pusher guy seemed perfectly fine, they he gets shot and turns.

Was he infected before? Was he bitten? You could think it was due to drugs, but he looked clean -- he was just pushing, not doing. I guess you can look at my comment below and maybe that answers it, but it can appear confusing... especially when we're hoping to learn the origin.

The neighbor guy seems ill but not injured, then he turns. Boyfriend guy is ill but clearly due to a bite. And why the hell is he hiding that? He has no idea he is going to zombify so there is no motive for him to be in denial. He should be all "some psycho bit me" and that's why I am ill.

I noticed some "deckstacking" in episode 2 -- like wth isn't anyone telling Alicia (or however you spell it) just what's going on? or tell the other son, who seems to think it's all just a "riot" at this point? It would be so much easier to share information and I don't see a compelling reason not to do that, at least with members of your immediate family.

But we really have no idea where this disease started or how it's moving around. By the end of Season 1 of TWD, we figure out that everyone is already infected and the living simply fight it off. But that's all we know.

The problem is that it looks like the "living" are getting it / dying from it. That only happens on TWD if you are bitten -- rather like the Komodo Dragon bite. It would infect you with a concentrated dose of disease that creates quick sepsis/necrosis. If you just "get it" from the environment, it just lays there dormant.

Maybe it eventually mutates into what we know in TWD series? It's not handled as clearly as it could be.
 

Doctor Cringelord

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I can't remember many shows where characterization was cemented in the first episode. I don't remember many shows where I immediately loved the characters. Patience can reward.
 

Totenkindly

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Okay, I haven't watched up to the latest episode (I've seen the other 5?) for Season 2, but it looks like no one else is very excited either.

This is another case with great setup, great actors/characters that could be worked with... and I just feel like Season 2 bites and took an artistic misstep.

This was nowhere more obvious than in Episode 5, which was like the capstone of a particular 2-3 episode plotline. It was arguably poorly plotted, but a decent director might have shot it in such a way as to salvage it a bit... and THAT failed as well. The ending was hackneyed enough that you might expect to see it as a first-time director's/writer's high school film project.

There's also the intersection with the web series (16 1-minute web episodes) about the airplane flight, right about the time the outbreak occurred. It was highly touted that "one of the characters would appear on the show" which made them sound like they'd become a regular. Well, I had a pretty good idea (out of two) which one would show up as a potential regular; as it were, both showed up for a few episodes, but both were entirely mishandled and failed to capitalize on the goodwill of the web series audience, and now both seem to be written off the show. Total crappy handling.

And while we're staying on the water, I was hoping for something a little thematically different so that there would be a difference between the two shows. Instead we're just seeing what we see in TWD, just accelerated a few seasons. People are jerks, and zombies are dangerous. They are just having nautical adventures versus land-based ones. Whatever.

Again, so far a disappointment. Which is really a shame because almost every cast member is just really solid, and you've got characters like Strand who just are interesting to study. It's a plotting/theme (AKA "vision") thing, not the actors.
 

Totenkindly

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Anyone else bother to watch this to mid-season?

There have been a few interesting elements (and I think Dougray Scott as Thomas, with that particular subplot, was pretty decent). And the mid-season finale does try to tie in with the title -- that was appreciated, since I never really understood why this title was selected.

However, I feel like character actions don't necessarily make sense, they seem to get shoved in certain directions just to make the plot go a certain way. There was a really disappointing outcome for at least one character who I was fond of.

I don't really need to be able to articulate everything that is wrong with a particular story; what I'll say is that I finally watched Episode 7 now, a few weeks after it aired, and mainly because I needed to clear it off my DVR so I could record some other things. yeah. Not great. The show essentially has tried to do something different, but has either mishandled the plot and/or just created some confusion rather than real tension.

I still like Frank Dillane a lot. Despite being too reminiscent of a young Depp, I think he's pretty solid and one of the more interesting characters. But again, all the characters just seem to be motivated by plot needs, not necessarily ones that make sense to the viewers.
 

jeffcoaster

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Alicia -- INFJ + 4w3 Sx/So
Madison -- ESFJ + 3w2 So/Sp
Travis -- ENFP + 1w2 So/Sx
Strand -- ISTP + 6w5 Sp/Sx
Daniel Salazar -- ISTJ + 8w9 Sp/Sx
Ofelia Salazar - ESFP + 2w1 Sx/So
Chris - INFP + 9w1 Sx/So
Liza -- ISFJ + 3w4 Sx/So
Alex -- ISTP + 5w6 Sp/Sx
 

Totenkindly

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Nick -- ISFP + 6w7 Sp/Sx
Alicia -- INFJ + 4w3 Sx/So
Madison -- ESFJ + 3w2 So/Sp
Travis -- ENFP + 1w2 So/Sx
Strand -- ISTP + 6w5 Sp/Sx
Daniel Salazar -- ISTJ + 8w9 Sp/Sx
Ofelia Salazar - ESFP + 2w1 Sx/So
Chris - INFP + 9w1 Sx/So
Liza -- ISFJ + 3w4 Sx/So
Alex -- ISTP + 5w6 Sp/Sx

This thread is in arts and entertainment and is for discussions of the show as a show. We have a different subforum for discussing personality types of show characters, if you want to do that
 

Totenkindly

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This thing started back up again on Sunday. My DVR recorded it; not yet sure if I want to watch it due to the disappointment of the first season half. Frank Dillane is decent, at least. But right now, it's not really adding much that is new + some of the plot twists have been crap (like the whole conclusion dealing with the boat pirates).
 

Totenkindly

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Haven't yet bothered to watch it; the buzz is awful. It sounds like they've continued with the fractured storylines (three of them), with time only for two out of three threads per episode, and without any clear goal to reunify the cast (and the characters that seemingly were so committed to each other now seem indifferent to finding each other). The mid-season finale had been pretty weak as well as disappointing. It's unclear what they're trying to accomplish.

Has anyone actually watched the last few episodes?
 
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