I thought the show moved pretty fast from the beginning (just some kids home sick from school), midway (there is this epidemic across the nation but nobody really believes its a problem yet), to the end (full out panic and fleeing from the healthy).
If we didn't know where it was headed, we'd probably be bitching about how fast the timeline is moving already and not building up the characters enough.
The pilot also did not fare well for me because I watched it after spending the weekend playing The Last of Us, which is one of the best zombie stories ever told in any medium.
So that is a somewhat unfair strike against it, admittedly.
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I have to wonder if the people using the fact that we know the rules and we know what's going to happen against the show are being a little harsh. I'm not sure the direction the show will eventually go, whether it'll be close to TWD or have it's own tone, but it was supposed to be a slow burn about the collapse of society at first. We know in the world they don't have zombie media, I believe that's been said, so it's very much initial outbreak or more suspense. It's the first 10 minutes of a zombie movie spread out over who knows how many episodes.
I actually really enjoyed the slow pace and the look at the characters. I enjoyed all the acting performances, even though I expected to not. I didn't think I'd like the daughter but think I will, hopefully she's not dumb. We say all the stuff happening right now doesn't matter in 2 days, but it's character background and it very well could. I'm enjoying the slow buildup, and curious to see how they handle it.
Basically if there was no The Walking Dead, and this came first, a lot of the complaints wouldn't be valid. It's because we are 5 seasons in to a world gone to shit. It's hard to rewind in our head I understand, but to not judge the show on it's own is kind of unfair. I'm liking it a lot more than I expected.
+3
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
Basically if there was no The Walking Dead, and this came first, a lot of the complaints wouldn't be valid.
But there is The Walking Dead.
But at least at the start they're totally different stories with totally different tones. At some point the world will break down out west and it'll be full on zombie epidemic, but right now this seems to be, at least episode one, the start of the zombie apocalypse and how people react to the start of it. No time jump, how people initially deal with it, accept it. In TWD it starts with people already abandoning society and dealing with the threat, I feel this will deal with those issues based on the first episode.
0
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
Basically if there was no The Walking Dead, and this came first, a lot of the complaints wouldn't be valid.
But there is The Walking Dead.
But at least at the start they're totally different stories with totally different tones. At some point the world will break down out west and it'll be full on zombie epidemic, but right now this seems to be, at least episode one, the start of the zombie apocalypse and how people react to the start of it. No time jump, how people initially deal with it, accept it. In TWD it starts with people already abandoning society and dealing with the threat, I feel this will deal with those issues based on the first episode.
Yes, it is all that.
But the first episode was still quite boring.
Also, the show runners have already said that if the series keeps going, at some point they'll do a time jump from "regular people trying to adjust" to "master zombie hunters", because time jumps are super interesting and provide great story telling opportunities, as opposed to just organically let the characters grow.
Basically if there was no The Walking Dead, and this came first, a lot of the complaints wouldn't be valid.
But there is The Walking Dead.
But at least at the start they're totally different stories with totally different tones. At some point the world will break down out west and it'll be full on zombie epidemic, but right now this seems to be, at least episode one, the start of the zombie apocalypse and how people react to the start of it. No time jump, how people initially deal with it, accept it. In TWD it starts with people already abandoning society and dealing with the threat, I feel this will deal with those issues based on the first episode.
Yes, it is all that.
But the first episode was still quite boring.
Also, the show runners have already said that if the series keeps going, at some point they'll do a time jump from "regular people trying to adjust" to "master zombie hunters", because time jumps are super interesting and provide great story telling opportunities, as opposed to just organically let the characters grow.
See that worries me like I was originally worried. I was worried it would just be a clone of TWD, or an inferior spin off. I think I enjoyed it as much as I did because it felt like it's own thing with it's own take. And they time jump ahead and it's all zombie apocalypse and no different from TWD, I probably won't stick around. Especially if Step Dad eats it. I really like him for some reason.
+2
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
The main lack of suspense comes from the two things we know about this Franchise:
1) The "big mystery" of what's going on is slow zombie apocalypse
2) There will be an apocalypse
If Fear was its own thing and not part of the Franchise, both of those questions would be in the air. Maybe there's different types of zombies. Maybe there's crazy Resident Evil tentacle monster zombies. Maybe Cthulhu is involved. Maybe the government eventually is able to fight off the zombies. Maybe it's revealed that wizards and necromancers are a real thing and one of our ordinary main characters has their wizard powers unlocked by the impending apocalypse.
But nope. The Franchise is about slow zombies and the apocalypse they cause.
They could've easily done the first hour and 15 minutes of the episode in about 20 minutes.
That's why it was boring.
To me that'd make it like every other zombie movie and not take advantage of the format. I'm actually appreciating the slow build up, although I do wish time would have only spanned a day or so in show. The 3 days of people being sick and nobody knowing anything was a little off to me.
The main lack of suspense comes from the two things we know about this Franchise:
1) The "big mystery" of what's going on is slow zombie apocalypse
2) There will be an apocalypse
If Fear was its own thing and not part of the Franchise, both of those questions would be in the air. Maybe there's different types of zombies. Maybe there's crazy Resident Evil tentacle monster zombies. Maybe Cthulhu is involved. Maybe the government eventually is able to fight off the zombies. Maybe it's revealed that wizards and necromancers are a real thing and one of our ordinary main characters has their wizard powers unlocked by the impending apocalypse.
But nope. The Franchise is about slow zombies and the apocalypse they cause.
Not true. As far as I know The Walking Dead hasn't said anything about anything west of the Mississippi, and as far as we know all the zombies fell into the Grand Canyon. This show could be about Living large in a deserted utopia.
What if it's the prequel to the show The Last Man On Earth?
The big argument is how a shambler apocalypse could actually happen. It was my understanding was that everyone on the planet was infected and so that is the method. The fun part about Fear is we get to see the how.
It's possible for a show about regular dudes going through regular dude problems to be compelling. FTWD isn't that show, though. All the non zombie stuff is very been there done that.
The interesting thing - the show's premise - is how the regular dude stuff intersects with zombie stuff. And that part wasn't very compelling either, for the specific reason that it was structured like a big mystery.
It is absolutely relevant that TWD exists, because the core demographic is fans of TWD. If they want us to forget that TWD exists, they need to give us a reason to do so.
One thing they could do is to set up a different set of rules. Maybe west coast zombies are different than eat coast zombies. West coast zombies drive like this, east coast zombies drive like that.
But none of that was evident from the pilot. Maybe it will be, which is why I'm not just writing of the show yet. But what I saw didn't justify its existence as anything but a cash grab.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
So, I like the sneak peek, is that the Mom raiding the school cafeteria for food? That looks like a good sign of fun zombie survival time. I like her drug addict son a lot, and do hope he's kind of the main character. I can see "walking dead" being something as a salvation for him, much like it was for Daryl. He was a total fuckup in the real world, but in this new world perhaps his good qualities will shine. Once he gets through withdrawal of course..
It will be interesting to see if the ratings drop from week 1 to next week. It wasn't spectacular but it was still better than 90% of the crap on tv. It also crushed TWD records in the ratings.
I enjoyed it, it was slow, establishing these characters and who they were before it went to shit. The frustrated nature of the addict son trying to tell people and having no one believe him was completely believable. Also audio queues throughout the episode I think we're indicating everything is fucked, no one knows yet.
People wondered how this would be different from the walking dead, and this is how its different, we get to see the bottom fall out, in real time. That's exciting!
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
I also liked the use of digital over the 16mm that TWD has, because its the earlier part, before things went to shit, so things are in "clearer" vision. Honestly I can't judge the pilot without seeing what comes after, its like reading the first chapter of a book and declaring it all bad, outside of Dave Barry I can't do that.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
Fear the ridiculously slow pace of a show that was renewed before it even Premiered... Walking Dead.
Positives:
-The opening scene shows the promise of "Walking Dead, the Early Years" quite well. I like people not being used to it and so on. The juxtaposition of a crowded street to the horror in the church. How badly unprepared the junkie son is for all this reminds me (in a good way) of The Stand.
-Having a young female lead right from the get go is nice, TWD took a long time to even TRY to develop any woman younger than 25... and then they killed all those characters, ha ha woops.
-The zomber effects at the end were very nice, that's the benefit of having Year Six zombie tech on Year One of your show.
-I did enjoy the paranoid "detective work" of the junkie and how the dad (stepdad?) character made a real effort to get to the bottom of things instead of just humoring him or trying to stop him.
Negatives:
-Pacing, oh my fucking god. I spent 90% of the episode on my phone, it was just really not great. Ha ha, fake scare. We tricked you into thinking something interesting might happen! What a good bit! How many scenes did we need of the boyfriend/girlfriend canoodling? I would say one half of one scene out of the existing 3+ scenes.
-Seriously, if you get an hour and a half running time with commercials, you need at least an hour of interesting material. There was maybe 20 minutes here.
-There's skepticism and then there's "Look, giant pools of blood just appear in churches if there's drugs. Stop trying to coddle his violent delusions with all the evidence of obvious violence you found!" Not a great way to introduce the character.
-Scene one, mother and father look for son, they do not find him. Scene two, mother and father reconvene and discuss how it would have been better, if they had, in fact, found the son. They reiterate the need to find him. They decide to go look for him. Repeat these scenes 10 times and wrap it, we have a pilot to the hot drama of the season, people!
-I was looking forward to a more self assured opening credits song/montage, instead they did a one second stinger. It might not be a popular idea, but I really prefer a cool opening credits.
Outlook:
-Pacing has ever been TWD's greatest weakness, it's REAL concerning to see these issues surface on the VERY FIRST EPISODE where the strongest material should be present to hook the audience. The preview did look quite interesting, I'm interested in military power plays, hold out actions set in large school buildings, and so on.
-Okay... I'm gonna need the "smart" girl character to do smart things vis a vis the apocalypse or I'll just resent that that was the lone bit of characterization for that character for the entire premier.
-The 'other son' character got basically zero time here, I wonder how much we're supposed to care that he exists. Maybe episode 2 or 3 spends A LOT of time with those characters to make up for it.
The main lack of suspense comes from the two things we know about this Franchise:
1) The "big mystery" of what's going on is slow zombie apocalypse
2) There will be an apocalypse
If Fear was its own thing and not part of the Franchise, both of those questions would be in the air. Maybe there's different types of zombies. Maybe there's crazy Resident Evil tentacle monster zombies. Maybe Cthulhu is involved. Maybe the government eventually is able to fight off the zombies. Maybe it's revealed that wizards and necromancers are a real thing and one of our ordinary main characters has their wizard powers unlocked by the impending apocalypse.
But nope. The Franchise is about slow zombies and the apocalypse they cause.
No, the franchise is about characters.
Your criticism is like saying Star Trek: The Next Generation lacks suspense because we already know about the Federation, and the Romulans, and the Klingons.
I thought there was a ton of suspense in the show. They constructed it with an audience in mind that had seen TWD. Like the opening scene -- you don't know if the boy is a zombie or not. Or a few scenes later, what will the step-dad discover in the church? Or the highway scene -- is this when a wave of zombies appear? Or towards the very end -- why is this drug dealer meeting with the boy, what's his plan?
The slow burn is part of the suspense. And I would argue that the fact that the audience knows things that the characters don't is a really interesting setting -- dramatic irony of course has been a part of fiction since humans were telling stories around camp fires.
+3
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Custom SpecialI know I am, I'm sure I am,I'm Sounders 'til I die!Registered Userregular
edited August 2015
Wrong thread derp.
But I did watch this today. Didn't feel terrible to me (not great, it's no TWD). But I wholeheartedly agree with a few who have commented here that the teen drama crap can't be over with soon enough. I didn't appreciate that garbage even when I was that age, and it sure doesn't get any more interesting as I get older.
Wrong thread derp.
But I did watch this today. Didn't feel terrible to me (not great, it's no TWD). But I wholeheartedly agree with a few who have commented here that the teen drama crap can't be over with soon enough. I didn't appreciate that garbage even when I was that age, and it sure doesn't get any more interesting as I get older.
you guys.. you guys have alot more experience with heroin in my teenage years than I did
I enjoyed it, it was slow, establishing these characters and who they were before it went to shit. The frustrated nature of the addict son trying to tell people and having no one believe him was completely believable. Also audio queues throughout the episode I think we're indicating everything is fucked, no one knows yet.
People wondered how this would be different from the walking dead, and this is how its different, we get to see the bottom fall out, in real time. That's exciting!
I enjoyed it, it was slow, establishing these characters and who they were before it went to shit. The frustrated nature of the addict son trying to tell people and having no one believe him was completely believable. Also audio queues throughout the episode I think we're indicating everything is fucked, no one knows yet.
People wondered how this would be different from the walking dead, and this is how its different, we get to see the bottom fall out, in real time. That's exciting!
Out of all the people who get it, it's Preacher. He's Mr. Show me now, not tell me later, and he's digging this show! Either the world has turned upside down, or you're all wrong!
"Hmm, my son said there are murderous flesh eaters in here. I should make sure to go at night, so my visibility is nil. Oh hey, it's a pool of blood and gore indicating that some unspeakable violence occurred. I wonder if the perpetrators of this heinous crime are still here? I SHOULD ANNOUNCE MY PRESENCE TO THEM VERY LOUDLY AND SEE IF THEY ARE."
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
The main lack of suspense comes from the two things we know about this Franchise:
1) The "big mystery" of what's going on is slow zombie apocalypse
2) There will be an apocalypse
If Fear was its own thing and not part of the Franchise, both of those questions would be in the air. Maybe there's different types of zombies. Maybe there's crazy Resident Evil tentacle monster zombies. Maybe Cthulhu is involved. Maybe the government eventually is able to fight off the zombies. Maybe it's revealed that wizards and necromancers are a real thing and one of our ordinary main characters has their wizard powers unlocked by the impending apocalypse.
But nope. The Franchise is about slow zombies and the apocalypse they cause.
No, the franchise is about characters.
Your criticism is like saying Star Trek: The Next Generation lacks suspense because we already know about the Federation, and the Romulans, and the Klingons.
I thought there was a ton of suspense in the show. They constructed it with an audience in mind that had seen TWD. Like the opening scene -- you don't know if the boy is a zombie or not. Or a few scenes later, what will the step-dad discover in the church? Or the highway scene -- is this when a wave of zombies appear? Or towards the very end -- why is this drug dealer meeting with the boy, what's his plan?
The slow burn is part of the suspense. And I would argue that the fact that the audience knows things that the characters don't is a really interesting setting -- dramatic irony of course has been a part of fiction since humans were telling stories around camp fires.
Exactly! I really hope this show has a different flow to it than TWD and has it's own voice. TWD was very much about everything hitting the fan and adapting to this new zombie filled world, and all the shit that goes into it. I really hope this is a bit more, personal? I dunno, I feel the slow burn has potential and can give us different character arcs and be it's own show.
It's very easy to be a "zombie" movie or show. Survival, people are shit, etc... I hope this is a bit more personal.
"Hmm, my son said there are murderous flesh eaters in here. I should make sure to go at night, so my visibility is nil. Oh hey, it's a pool of blood and gore indicating that some unspeakable violence occurred. I wonder if the perpetrators of this heinous crime are still here? I SHOULD ANNOUNCE MY PRESENCE TO THEM VERY LOUDLY AND SEE IF THEY ARE."
I dunno. I disagree totally here. I thought he was reasonable step dad trying to relate. Everyone else writes him off as a druggy, and he's like, hey, he's a junkie. But there's something possibly here. I mean, if you were step dad and step son is telling you this story, you're going to think he got high and killed people. And then, you go there, thinking maybe he got high and had a bad trip, and there's blood like there is. But, you look at it, and it's like, this isn't a bad trip murder, something really gruesome happened here. There's a lot of blood, a couple of teeth, and no body. Maybe the bad acid trip wasn't just a bad acid trip.
yeah what the hell, that was completely relatable and sensible.
Hmm, my son said there are murderous flesh eaters in here. I should make sure to go at night, so my visibility is nil.
this is the classic commando on the internet crap that is the worst of walking dead threads. every move a character makes that is normal and human, rather than tried and tested left 4 dead strategy, is called out as dumb. reading good writing as bad writing and bad writing as good writing
it was dumb that he didn't make a bigger deal about the viscera to the wife when he got out of there though
Wrong thread derp.
But I did watch this today. Didn't feel terrible to me (not great, it's no TWD). But I wholeheartedly agree with a few who have commented here that the teen drama crap can't be over with soon enough. I didn't appreciate that garbage even when I was that age, and it sure doesn't get any more interesting as I get older.
you guys.. you guys have alot more experience with heroin in my teenage years than I did
Huh? Drug Bro was the only interesting 'teen' part (personally, I hate all the choices he makes, but that doesn't make them untrue for a character with his issues [PS- never touched drugs, so I have no clue about any of it anyway]).
The teen drama that needs to be gone is I'm too cool/done with high school Sister and especially can't wait to never see stepdad's son ever again (I remember seeing him in the sneak previews "fine dad, make me come"...ugh so bad).
And on visiting the church at night: at first I thought it was just typical TV 'gotta go at night so it's more suspenseful', but then I realized he probably left to investigate after Drug Bro was asleep (since he was staying at the hospital to watch after him).
I also enjoy the drug addict, I agree that this apocalypse will probably be his salvation.
Hopefully that scene in the trailer isn't the end scene of the next episode as they build up and slowly reveal that LA is slowly zombifying.
Agreed, totally digging the smart survivalist big and tall teen. The addict son also interests me and to some degree the parents and daughter now interest me as well.
Because they are all much more aware of that the shit has hit the fan than the other inhabitants of these early days of the Walking Dead world, that piques my interest because now armed with that information, what do they do with it? Ignore it? Stockpile? Hide? Loot? Make Fort Kick Ass in the school? Wait for the cops and soldiers to bring them disaster aid? Join a gang? Flee and end up refugees in another community? Jump on a boat and go fishing? There kinda are no right or wrong answers at this point.
Also, count down to when zombieland: California Zombie Fear Factor edition has ...
- the Hoover Dam for some reason stops supplying electricity and/or collapses and drowns a bit of the place
- California brown outs due to dick corporations
- Los Angeles and Berkley riot
- Drought
- Earthquakes
- Massive bush / forest fires
The show still has considerable potential to make our survivor's lives horrible.
Has anybody said anything about them already killing off a black guy? This is obviously the same rules as the TWD universe we know!
T-Dog lives on in our memories!
Well both are most likely dead. And Calvin was a jerk trying to off my new best bro Nick.
I recall a review saying this show needs a Daryl, and we already have one, when Nick cleans up he'll be the one showing these people how to live when society falls apart, he already knows that part for much the same reason Daryl did, because to him everything has already fallen apart.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
And the thing is we saw Daryl post shit falling apart, we saw him mostly put together. We never got to see scared druggy biker and his abusive brother just finding out that shit had hit the fan. That's where Nick is right now, and again his mostly put together parents are good at navigating society, much like a lot of the season one zombo fodder was, they know how things are supposed to work. They reached out to the zombie Cal, where as Nick was running that mother fucker over, he doesn't know the rules yet, but he does no number 1 "Don't let them bite you."
I also have to wonder if the zombie bites right now aren't deadly because the zombies don't have the weaponized flu they have in georgia. It almost makes you wonder if the zombies got the flu from some failed biological weapon being used on them.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
Zombie bites are always deadly because of magic.
Also, I saw no indication that Nick knows about any rules, he just ran a motherfucker over because it was the guy what tried to kill him attacking his mom.
He was screaming to get away from cal before he ran him over. He's ahead of the curve. He also knew the hospital was a bad place, might not know why, but he knew to get out of there.
And they are deadly because of the flu they give you, we saw that back in season 1. I just wonder if these early ones don't have the flu/infection yet.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
Also, I saw no indication that Nick knows about any rules, he just ran a motherfucker over because it was the guy what tried to kill him attacking his mom.
I got the distinct impression that he recognized Calvin's shambling as being the same as the chick from the church. He doesn't know the rules but he ran him down because he knew it was more than "just the guy who tried to kill me".
+1
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
He was screaming to get away from cal before he ran him over. He's ahead of the curve. He also knew the hospital was a bad place, might not know why, but he knew to get out of there.
And they are deadly because of the flu they give you, we saw that back in season 1. I just wonder if these early ones don't have the flu/infection yet.
You're right that zombie bites give you horrible fever that makes you die, but the reason behind that is that zombie bites are deadly because zombie bites are deadly.
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If we didn't know where it was headed, we'd probably be bitching about how fast the timeline is moving already and not building up the characters enough.
So that is a somewhat unfair strike against it, admittedly.
I actually really enjoyed the slow pace and the look at the characters. I enjoyed all the acting performances, even though I expected to not. I didn't think I'd like the daughter but think I will, hopefully she's not dumb. We say all the stuff happening right now doesn't matter in 2 days, but it's character background and it very well could. I'm enjoying the slow buildup, and curious to see how they handle it.
Basically if there was no The Walking Dead, and this came first, a lot of the complaints wouldn't be valid. It's because we are 5 seasons in to a world gone to shit. It's hard to rewind in our head I understand, but to not judge the show on it's own is kind of unfair. I'm liking it a lot more than I expected.
But there is The Walking Dead.
But at least at the start they're totally different stories with totally different tones. At some point the world will break down out west and it'll be full on zombie epidemic, but right now this seems to be, at least episode one, the start of the zombie apocalypse and how people react to the start of it. No time jump, how people initially deal with it, accept it. In TWD it starts with people already abandoning society and dealing with the threat, I feel this will deal with those issues based on the first episode.
Yes, it is all that.
But the first episode was still quite boring.
Also, the show runners have already said that if the series keeps going, at some point they'll do a time jump from "regular people trying to adjust" to "master zombie hunters", because time jumps are super interesting and provide great story telling opportunities, as opposed to just organically let the characters grow.
That's why it was boring.
See that worries me like I was originally worried. I was worried it would just be a clone of TWD, or an inferior spin off. I think I enjoyed it as much as I did because it felt like it's own thing with it's own take. And they time jump ahead and it's all zombie apocalypse and no different from TWD, I probably won't stick around. Especially if Step Dad eats it. I really like him for some reason.
1) The "big mystery" of what's going on is slow zombie apocalypse
2) There will be an apocalypse
If Fear was its own thing and not part of the Franchise, both of those questions would be in the air. Maybe there's different types of zombies. Maybe there's crazy Resident Evil tentacle monster zombies. Maybe Cthulhu is involved. Maybe the government eventually is able to fight off the zombies. Maybe it's revealed that wizards and necromancers are a real thing and one of our ordinary main characters has their wizard powers unlocked by the impending apocalypse.
But nope. The Franchise is about slow zombies and the apocalypse they cause.
To me that'd make it like every other zombie movie and not take advantage of the format. I'm actually appreciating the slow build up, although I do wish time would have only spanned a day or so in show. The 3 days of people being sick and nobody knowing anything was a little off to me.
Not true. As far as I know The Walking Dead hasn't said anything about anything west of the Mississippi, and as far as we know all the zombies fell into the Grand Canyon. This show could be about Living large in a deserted utopia.
What if it's the prequel to the show The Last Man On Earth?
The interesting thing - the show's premise - is how the regular dude stuff intersects with zombie stuff. And that part wasn't very compelling either, for the specific reason that it was structured like a big mystery.
It is absolutely relevant that TWD exists, because the core demographic is fans of TWD. If they want us to forget that TWD exists, they need to give us a reason to do so.
One thing they could do is to set up a different set of rules. Maybe west coast zombies are different than eat coast zombies. West coast zombies drive like this, east coast zombies drive like that.
But none of that was evident from the pilot. Maybe it will be, which is why I'm not just writing of the show yet. But what I saw didn't justify its existence as anything but a cash grab.
People wondered how this would be different from the walking dead, and this is how its different, we get to see the bottom fall out, in real time. That's exciting!
pleasepaypreacher.net
pleasepaypreacher.net
Positives:
-The opening scene shows the promise of "Walking Dead, the Early Years" quite well. I like people not being used to it and so on. The juxtaposition of a crowded street to the horror in the church. How badly unprepared the junkie son is for all this reminds me (in a good way) of The Stand.
-Having a young female lead right from the get go is nice, TWD took a long time to even TRY to develop any woman younger than 25... and then they killed all those characters, ha ha woops.
-The zomber effects at the end were very nice, that's the benefit of having Year Six zombie tech on Year One of your show.
-I did enjoy the paranoid "detective work" of the junkie and how the dad (stepdad?) character made a real effort to get to the bottom of things instead of just humoring him or trying to stop him.
Negatives:
-Pacing, oh my fucking god. I spent 90% of the episode on my phone, it was just really not great. Ha ha, fake scare. We tricked you into thinking something interesting might happen! What a good bit! How many scenes did we need of the boyfriend/girlfriend canoodling? I would say one half of one scene out of the existing 3+ scenes.
-Seriously, if you get an hour and a half running time with commercials, you need at least an hour of interesting material. There was maybe 20 minutes here.
-There's skepticism and then there's "Look, giant pools of blood just appear in churches if there's drugs. Stop trying to coddle his violent delusions with all the evidence of obvious violence you found!" Not a great way to introduce the character.
-Scene one, mother and father look for son, they do not find him. Scene two, mother and father reconvene and discuss how it would have been better, if they had, in fact, found the son. They reiterate the need to find him. They decide to go look for him. Repeat these scenes 10 times and wrap it, we have a pilot to the hot drama of the season, people!
-I was looking forward to a more self assured opening credits song/montage, instead they did a one second stinger. It might not be a popular idea, but I really prefer a cool opening credits.
Outlook:
-Pacing has ever been TWD's greatest weakness, it's REAL concerning to see these issues surface on the VERY FIRST EPISODE where the strongest material should be present to hook the audience. The preview did look quite interesting, I'm interested in military power plays, hold out actions set in large school buildings, and so on.
-Okay... I'm gonna need the "smart" girl character to do smart things vis a vis the apocalypse or I'll just resent that that was the lone bit of characterization for that character for the entire premier.
-The 'other son' character got basically zero time here, I wonder how much we're supposed to care that he exists. Maybe episode 2 or 3 spends A LOT of time with those characters to make up for it.
No, the franchise is about characters.
Your criticism is like saying Star Trek: The Next Generation lacks suspense because we already know about the Federation, and the Romulans, and the Klingons.
I thought there was a ton of suspense in the show. They constructed it with an audience in mind that had seen TWD. Like the opening scene -- you don't know if the boy is a zombie or not. Or a few scenes later, what will the step-dad discover in the church? Or the highway scene -- is this when a wave of zombies appear? Or towards the very end -- why is this drug dealer meeting with the boy, what's his plan?
The slow burn is part of the suspense. And I would argue that the fact that the audience knows things that the characters don't is a really interesting setting -- dramatic irony of course has been a part of fiction since humans were telling stories around camp fires.
But I did watch this today. Didn't feel terrible to me (not great, it's no TWD). But I wholeheartedly agree with a few who have commented here that the teen drama crap can't be over with soon enough. I didn't appreciate that garbage even when I was that age, and it sure doesn't get any more interesting as I get older.
you guys.. you guys have alot more experience with heroin in my teenage years than I did
Out of all the people who get it, it's Preacher. He's Mr. Show me now, not tell me later, and he's digging this show! Either the world has turned upside down, or you're all wrong!
This was just slow.
Also, druggie dad was fucking stupid.
Exactly! I really hope this show has a different flow to it than TWD and has it's own voice. TWD was very much about everything hitting the fan and adapting to this new zombie filled world, and all the shit that goes into it. I really hope this is a bit more, personal? I dunno, I feel the slow burn has potential and can give us different character arcs and be it's own show.
It's very easy to be a "zombie" movie or show. Survival, people are shit, etc... I hope this is a bit more personal.
I dunno. I disagree totally here. I thought he was reasonable step dad trying to relate. Everyone else writes him off as a druggy, and he's like, hey, he's a junkie. But there's something possibly here. I mean, if you were step dad and step son is telling you this story, you're going to think he got high and killed people. And then, you go there, thinking maybe he got high and had a bad trip, and there's blood like there is. But, you look at it, and it's like, this isn't a bad trip murder, something really gruesome happened here. There's a lot of blood, a couple of teeth, and no body. Maybe the bad acid trip wasn't just a bad acid trip.
Maybe I'm just on team Step Dad.
this is the classic commando on the internet crap that is the worst of walking dead threads. every move a character makes that is normal and human, rather than tried and tested left 4 dead strategy, is called out as dumb. reading good writing as bad writing and bad writing as good writing
it was dumb that he didn't make a bigger deal about the viscera to the wife when he got out of there though
I enjoy survivalist fat kid, that's neat.
I also enjoy the drug addict, I agree that this apocalypse will probably be his salvation.
Hopefully that scene in the trailer isn't the end scene of the next episode as they build up and slowly reveal that LA is slowly zombifying.
Huh? Drug Bro was the only interesting 'teen' part (personally, I hate all the choices he makes, but that doesn't make them untrue for a character with his issues [PS- never touched drugs, so I have no clue about any of it anyway]).
The teen drama that needs to be gone is I'm too cool/done with high school Sister and especially can't wait to never see stepdad's son ever again (I remember seeing him in the sneak previews "fine dad, make me come"...ugh so bad).
And on visiting the church at night: at first I thought it was just typical TV 'gotta go at night so it's more suspenseful', but then I realized he probably left to investigate after Drug Bro was asleep (since he was staying at the hospital to watch after him).
Agreed, totally digging the smart survivalist big and tall teen. The addict son also interests me and to some degree the parents and daughter now interest me as well.
Because they are all much more aware of that the shit has hit the fan than the other inhabitants of these early days of the Walking Dead world, that piques my interest because now armed with that information, what do they do with it? Ignore it? Stockpile? Hide? Loot? Make Fort Kick Ass in the school? Wait for the cops and soldiers to bring them disaster aid? Join a gang? Flee and end up refugees in another community? Jump on a boat and go fishing? There kinda are no right or wrong answers at this point.
Also, count down to when zombieland: California Zombie Fear Factor edition has ...
- the Hoover Dam for some reason stops supplying electricity and/or collapses and drowns a bit of the place
- California brown outs due to dick corporations
- Los Angeles and Berkley riot
- Drought
- Earthquakes
- Massive bush / forest fires
The show still has considerable potential to make our survivor's lives horrible.
And the addict interests me if they turn him into some kind of Eddie Dean style bad ass.
pleasepaypreacher.net
T-Dog lives on in our memories!
I am sad that Cliff Curtis is once again type cast as a hispanic dude, one of these days Cliff they'll let you be a Maori one of these days.
pleasepaypreacher.net
I don't think that was the same person.
The sharpie kid was the daughter's boyfriend (Russell -- did he die yet or is he just not respond to texts?).
The other guy was a drug dealer (Calvin).
I recall a review saying this show needs a Daryl, and we already have one, when Nick cleans up he'll be the one showing these people how to live when society falls apart, he already knows that part for much the same reason Daryl did, because to him everything has already fallen apart.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Daryl was great for surviving in the wilderness of backwoods Georgia.
I also have to wonder if the zombie bites right now aren't deadly because the zombies don't have the weaponized flu they have in georgia. It almost makes you wonder if the zombies got the flu from some failed biological weapon being used on them.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Also, I saw no indication that Nick knows about any rules, he just ran a motherfucker over because it was the guy what tried to kill him attacking his mom.
And they are deadly because of the flu they give you, we saw that back in season 1. I just wonder if these early ones don't have the flu/infection yet.
pleasepaypreacher.net
I got the distinct impression that he recognized Calvin's shambling as being the same as the chick from the church. He doesn't know the rules but he ran him down because he knew it was more than "just the guy who tried to kill me".
You're right that zombie bites give you horrible fever that makes you die, but the reason behind that is that zombie bites are deadly because zombie bites are deadly.