Fear the Walking Dead

dragonjax · Sep 30, 2015

Alpha, I'm pretty sure that the military is planning on "humanely" exterminating the populace before they leave town -- and that operation, Cobalt, will take place at 9 am. (Episode 5 ended the night before.) Remember the way Liza put down Grizelda so that she wouldn't turn? Imagine the military with a lot of those.

I have no idea why they're keeping some people in cages. Drama? Because the plot needs it to happen?

And I was actually annoyed that the doctor already knew the big reveal of TWD season 2 - that everyone is infected. I don't know why it annoyed me so much. But it did.

I vaguely recall thinking that the last scene was good, but for the life of me, I don't remember what the last scene was. Oh well.

LittlePinto · Sep 30, 2015

I gathered that the people they were keeping caged were the people who were either at potential risk for unexpected death (drug addicts) or people who would potentially disrupt the social order (Cufflink Guy) or spread panic (someone having an emotional breakdown). People who know too much would definitely be included in the "potentially disrupt social order" group.

I still don't think keeping the details secret is realistic. The more people you have who know that people turn after death and the only way to stop it is head trauma, the better off you'll be. I also think people would be so scared of the zombies, they'd start policing themselves and their neighbors.

Alpha Echo · Sep 30, 2015

That makes sense about the caged people.

But the rest of it...I don't know. How long do you think the government would try to contain the situation, thinking it could end the spread of the disease and save the world? That's what I see happening. The government knows whats happening but tells the military they are working to cure it. Meanwhile, it asks the military to contain it by any means necessary.

Alpha Echo · Sep 30, 2015

Sorry, just noticed the other reply. :/

dragonjax said:
I vaguely recall thinking that the last scene was good, but for the life of me, I don't remember what the last scene was. Oh well.

Huh. Me either. LOL...damn.

Stiger05 · Sep 30, 2015

The last scene was Daniel at the coliseum full of Walkers. I'm fully expecting him to cut the chains and let a horde of zombies overrun the soldiers. I couldn't tell if the coliseum is inside or outside the fence, though. Either way, this is when I expect that hole in the fence to come into play.

I'm torn on this one. There's too much going on that I think is happening for plot purposes, but I like the way the characters are growing. Travis being all "they're still people" and Maddie embracing the reality/dark side of what's going on. Alicia even bothers me less as the show progresses. I'm just wish the plot conveniences would cease.

nighttimer · Sep 30, 2015

It's Still Dead, Jim.

My brother who enjoys The Walking Dead hates Fear the Walking Dead. I'm not a huge fan of the former, but the latter has failed for me because it made the dumb decision to take the cheap way out. It made this show about one family dealing with the zombie apocalypse (not the "walker" apocalypse and fuck you very much, Robert Kirkman!) because it is cheaper on the budget than staging scenes of chaos and disorder in the street as Los Angeles crumbles beneath an onslaught of the ravenous undead.

Fear the Walking Dead needs movie-sized money to pull that off, but opted for TV-sized talking heads and two-shots. A critic for Forbes broke down the five things wrong with the show and here's two of 'em.

1. We need to actually see the breakdown of civilization, government, and communities.

The entire premise of Fear the Walking Dead was to give viewers a glimpse of the zombie outbreak from Day Zero on. In The Walking Dead we awaken with Rick Grimes in a hospital already lost to the living. Major cities like Atlanta have long since fallen. In the spinoff we’re supposed to see the in-between stages from the earliest days of the outbreak.

That’s how Fear the Walking Dead began. We saw a bunch of weird incidents, police protests, riots, and the very rapid social entropy that one imagines would accompany this sort of undead outbreak. But very quickly, and very suddenly, all that was tossed into the trash. The military showed up and we fast-forwarded into an ad hoc police state with no glimpse at what was happening in the world around our main cast of hapless survivors.

This isn’t the show we were promised. If anything, this is an interesting premise for the next season, but for the first season I expected to see a more gradual breakdown of civilization. I was hoping we’d see our heroes actually start to fight to survive—going out into the insane city to get supplies, or attempting to make a break for the desert but running into standstill traffic and being forced to hoof it through an urban center rapidly devolving into intense danger.

I’m honestly not sure if it’s too late to fix this issue. Madison’s little adventure into the no-man’s-land revealed nothing but death. Between the infected and the military, there’s not much left of civilization to break down—unless the show dumps the entire cast and shows us a new city devolving into chaos each season. It’s not like we’re very attached to these characters. Which brings us to…

2. The main characters are really boring and stupid.

The characters in The Walking Dead can do some godawful stupid things sometimes, acting like puppets for the show’s writers lamely moving from one scenario to the next not because that’s what they would actually do but because that’s what the plot demands of them.
But they’re so much worse in Fear the Walking Dead. Outside of Daniel Salazar—AMC should find a way to get actor Ruben Blades into The Walking Dead instead—there aren’t many characters that actually deserve to survive. Madison and Travis are so slow on the uptake, it’s amazing they’ve made it this far. Nick is a junkie. Alicia is woefully underdeveloped in general.

In fact, I’d say the Salazar family is a much more compelling bunch than Travis and co. I’d much rather watch a story about Daniel and Griselda and Ofelia, but they’ve been largely relegated to secondary figures. I’m worried that Daniel is being used more as a catalyst for Travis and Madison’s growth than as a major character in his own right.

There’s no way to quickly or easily scrub the cast, however. So the writers need to do something they’ve never done before: Write the stories around the characters and not the other way around. Give these people real motivations, flaws, and conflicts and quit making them say and do stupid things unless you really want them to be stupid.

This leads to a secondary problem: We know that the zombie apocalypse is coming and we know that these are undead monsters that want to eat human flesh, but the characters don’t. In drama, we can’t help but place ourselves in the shoes of the characters we’re watching. When it works best is when we find ourselves asking “What would I do in this situation?” and not finding a ready answer. Good drama often means tough choices, morally complex conundrums, and so forth. But here we simply have characters acting ridiculous as the world crumbles around them, and since we’re all so used to this zombie parable, it’s bizarre to see characters react as though they’ve never even heard of such a thing, and it becomes very hard to empathize.

In a couple weeks when The Walking Dead airs, we’ll see a bunch of hardened, battle-ready survivors in a tense and compelling universe with morally complex dilemmas at every turn. But here, we have to watch a ragtag group of idiots keep making mistakes while we know better.

This might work if the breakdown of society was more gradual or if the characters were more sympathetic. Alas, such is not the case.

It may seem I enjoy dumping on this dead, shambling, shuffling, trainwreck of a show, (and there's a small, twisted part of me that does), but truthfully, I'm more disappointed than delighted I have to dump on Fear the Walking Dead. I wanted to like it. I wanted it to be scary and full of dread and sink its teeth into me and bite down hard.

But it hasn't. It's just another dysfunctional modern family with smart mom Madison, dummy daddy figure Travis, junkie wasteoid Nick and mopey brat Alicia, and if all of them ended up passing through a zombie's digestive tract, it would be a better show without them.

No matter how good the last episode is, it won't be good enough to make up for the five preceding it.

LittlePinto · Sep 30, 2015

Alpha Echo said:
That makes sense about the caged people.

But the rest of it...I don't know. How long do you think the government would try to contain the situation, thinking it could end the spread of the disease and save the world? That's what I see happening. The government knows whats happening but tells the military they are working to cure it. Meanwhile, it asks the military to contain it by any means necessary.

I think the tipping point would be when they were pushed out of major metropolitan areas. At that point there is no way to imagine that everything will return to normal. Even if the higher-ups were trying to do the "rah rah! GO AMERICA!" thing, the people on the front lines would be looking to form stable defensive groups.

nighttimer said:
My brother who enjoys The Walking Dead hates Fear the Walking Dead. I'm not a huge fan of the former, but the latter has failed for me because it made the dumb decision to take the cheap way out. It made this show about one family dealing with the zombie apocalypse (not the "walker" apocalypse and fuck you very much, Robert Kirkman!) because it is cheaper on the budget than staging scenes of chaos and disorder in the street as Los Angeles crumbles beneath an onslaught of the ravenous undead.

Fear the Walking Dead needs movie-sized money to pull that off, but opted for TV-sized talking heads and two-shots. A critic for Forbes broke down the five things wrong with the show and here's two of 'em.

It may seem I enjoy dumping on this dead, shambling, shuffling, trainwreck of a show, (and there's a small, twisted part of me that does), but truthfully, I'm more disappointed than delighted I have to dump on Fear the Walking Dead. I wanted to like it. I wanted it to be scary and full of dread and sink its teeth into me and bite down hard.

But it hasn't. It's just another dysfunctional modern family with smart mom Madison, dummy daddy figure Travis, junkie wasteoid Nick and mopey brat Alicia, and if all of them ended up passing through a zombie's digestive tract, it would be a better show without them.

No matter how good the last episode is, it won't be good enough to make up for the five preceding it.

In other words, they need HBO instead of AMC.

The part that kills me is that the writers could have solved so many problems if they had actually studied some of the historic pandemics that did result in social collapse (or near social collapse) and reordering. Then they could have designed a plague that would have the same effect on our society. They even set up for part of it with the premise that everyone carries the zombie bug!

This issue goes far beyond not having a big enough budget. This goes to the decision-makers thinking they had a surefire hit with a built-in audience. It never occurred to them that Fear might have to earn its right to exist and that to do so they needed to put some work into it. I wonder how many people will leave and not return after this season is over?

nighttimer · Sep 30, 2015

LittlePinto said:
I think the tipping point would be when they were pushed out of major metropolitan areas. At that point there is no way to imagine that everything will return to normal. Even if the higher-ups were trying to do the "rah rah! GO AMERICA!" thing, the people on the front lines would be looking to form stable defensive groups.

Interestingly, some conservatives fans of the show have ruminated exactly how would the military hold it together during an outbreak of zombies?

Pessimistic view:

As I understand the dynamics of the Walking Dead universe (at least as illustrated in Fear the Walking Dead), the apocalypse starts when a wave of “the flu” sweeps through the country — except this flu is rapidly fatal if you’re symptomatic. Note that several people “turn” without being bitten. The sickest members of society die first (junkies and the homeless), but then people start falling like flies within 24 hours or so of the first victims. They immediately reanimate and start munching everyone around them.

The immediate chaos would impact our military almost as badly as the civilian population. All of a sudden guys are fighting off zombies in the barracks, officers are home trying to keep the wife from eating the children – all while they’re being frantically called in to collect their weapons and respond to the nightmare that’s erupting everywhere. In a nation of 320 million, if even 5 percent are fatally infected with the initial virus, that’s 16 million zombies munching away, plus a significant and immediate loss of military combat power as troops fight off their undead comrades (not knowing that every bite is fatal). Assuming the military could stabilize its own bases within, say, 24 to 48 hours (though the barracks, dining facilities, and hospitals would be scenes of utter carnage), then the few hundred thousand remaining troops (most of them not combat soldiers) would face the task of dealing with a zombie population that would be crossing the 100 million mark, and rising.

Cornell researchers modeled the zombie outbreak, and estimated that New York City would fall in a day. In that circumstance, the best the military could do is attempt to set up safe zones and then try to slowly clear the surrounding countryside — locating as many survivors as they could. But they’d lose people, they’d have no real supply line left, and 100 million zombies would turn into 200 million fast. Soldiers would run out of bullets before they’d run out of zombies to kill — especially since a kill requires a head shot (easier said than done — there’s a reason we’re trained to aim for center mass.) Given that reality, I think the show did a decent job on a limited budget in showing a doomed urban safe haven strategy.

Optimistic view:

3. I’m just not buying the idea that the military would be entirely outmatched by unthinking, slow-moving rotting sacks of meat that can be lured by loud sounds, including car alarms and barking dogs. It may take the military a little while to discover that every bite is fatal, but most people still don’t want to get bit. And while the military may be taught to shoot center mass, biting is a real close range tactic, which moves heads into easier target range. See item #1 on this piece. I’m not saying that a zombie outbreak would be cleaned up in a day or two. But immediate and systemic society-wide breakdown? Not convinced (absent some other galvanizing factor).

4. I know I brought this on myself, but I want to be clear I’m not a zombie hater or poo-pooer. I love the genre. I’m tempted to say, “Gosh, I hope you’re right that we’d all be doomed if zombism broke out.”

5. Last I really like The Walking Dead and I’m more than willing to stick it out with Fear The Walking Dead. My wife and I have been re-watching the entire TWD series (we’re up to season four). It’s interesting, I remember the first two seasons being much slower than they were on the return visit. I still have lots of gripes, but they’re gripes generated by a true affection.

I tend to subscribe the Pessimistic perspective. Grab yer guns and run for the hills!

Little Pinto said:
The part that kills me is that the writers could have solved so many problems if they had actually studied some of the historic pandemics that did result in social collapse (or near social collapse) and reordering. Then they could have designed a plague that would have the same effect on our society. They even set up for part of it with the premise that everyone carries the zombie bug!

This issue goes far beyond not having a big enough budget. This goes to the decision-makers thinking they had a surefire hit with a built-in audience. It never occurred to them that Fear might have to earn its right to exist and that to do so they needed to put some work into it. I wonder how many people will leave and not return after this season is over?

Well, the showrunner is all but saying (some spoilers for those who haven't seen "Cobalt"), "Okay, we know everyone hates the pace of the show and how few zombies and zombie kills there have been, but strap yourself in for this next episode True Believers, BECAUSE IT'S ALL GONNA HIT THE FAN!!!!

This Sunday, I would predict a lot more walkers, a lot more running away and a cast member or two not returning for Season Two. This last episode will go a long way in determining who comes back to watch Season Two.

Cardio.

LittlePinto · Sep 30, 2015

nighttimer said:
Well, the showrunner is all but saying (some spoilers for those who haven't seen "Cobalt"), "Okay, we know everyone hates the pace of the show and how few zombies and zombie kills there have been, but strap yourself in for this next episode True Believers, BECAUSE IT'S ALL GONNA HIT THE FAN!!!!

This Sunday, I would predict a lot more walkers, a lot more running away and a cast member or two not returning for Season Two. This last episode will go a long way in determining who comes back to watch Season Two.

Cardio.

There had better be more walkers. I was promised zombie mayhem! I will be terribly disappointed--although not surprised--if we don't see zombie action until the final ten minutes and the episode ends on a cliffhanger. With all of the set-up they've been doing, I think we're owed at least a solid half hour of running, screaming, and head shots.

Haunted_October · Sep 30, 2015

I never had an issue with the slow pace--it's the beginning of the apocalypse, not TWD.

My issue is that I was hoping to see more of how the world went to hell all at once, yet no one is speaking about it: youtube, twitter...etc, nothing (which is shown in the show). The ENTIRE world is coming undone but not even families were talking to each other BEFORE the phones and lights went out. And considering the world went down together, you'd think that someone would be mentioning that the "flu" was hitting the northern and southern hemisphere at the same time BEFORE everything went black. That's some MASSIVE gov't cover-up happening between every country in the world, especially for the heavily congested cities of the world.

And no one seems to be using radios for communication--I doubt the military confiscated every short and long range radio in the country to stop people from reaching out to each other.

About the cages: I agree that the people in those cages are the ones who'd cause the most trouble on the outside, so the military is trying to keep them separate from the those in the fenced areas.

I think of Travis as being in the same mindset as Maggie/Hershel...etc in season two of TWD. He still sees them as human, as possibly being able to be saved. And that's true to his character. This is the beginning--not everyone is going to be rush out and start killing the infected/turned all at once. They don't understand that they can't come back, yet, and they won't until it's fully forced on them.

I do still like the show, but I am disappointed that we're not seeing more of the downfall.

beckethm · Sep 30, 2015

Haunted_October said:
My issue is that I was hoping to see more of how the world went to hell all at once, yet no one is speaking about it: youtube, twitter...etc, nothing (which is shown in the show). The ENTIRE world is coming undone but not even families were talking to each other BEFORE the phones and lights went out. And considering the world went down together, you'd think that someone would be mentioning that the "flu" was hitting the northern and southern hemisphere at the same time BEFORE everything went black.

That's been one of my complaints too. It seems like we went from a few zombies shuffling around to the complete breakdown of global communications overnight, and that just doesn't strike me as in any way realistic. Even in the most war-torn parts of the real world, people have cell phones and satellite TV and internet access. Surely those things would keep working for some period of time, and our heroes would be watching reports of what's going on. I imagine a kid like Alicia would be frantically texting everyone she knows to see if they're okay.

I also have to agree that the show's chief weakness is the characters. The only person in the whole cast who's even slightly interesting is Daniel, but after what he did this week I really don't care to see more of him.

Underdawg47 · Sep 30, 2015

I am wondering if this community is going to start out being similar to the Alexandria Safe Zone and then fall apart later one, or if all hell is going to break lose on this next episode and we will be tossed into the full on zombie apocalypse.

Corsairs · Sep 30, 2015

beckethm said:
That's been one of my complaints too. It seems like we went from a few zombies shuffling around to the complete breakdown of global communications overnight, and that just doesn't strike me as in any way realistic. Even in the most war-torn parts of the real world, people have cell phones and satellite TV and internet access. Surely those things would keep working for some period of time, and our heroes would be watching reports of what's going on. I imagine a kid like Alicia would be frantically texting everyone she knows to see if they're okay.

Couldn't have said it better. Fear the Walking Dead's failure to accomplish the one thing I expected of it—detail humanity's slow descent into oblivion—is strangling my enjoyment of the show.

Viridian · Sep 30, 2015

Corsairs said:
Couldn't have said it better. Fear the Walking Dead's failure to accomplish the one thing I expected of it—detail humanity's slow descent into oblivion—is strangling my enjoyment of the show.

That... is a really damn good point.

nahalwi · Oct 4, 2015

Season finale...they escape a rush of zombies, get to a relatively secluded place...and they leave a damned door open?! No sympathy. None. They all deserve to die. Every last one of them.

LittlePinto · Oct 4, 2015

They do what?! Seriously, how are these people still alive? They should have figured the basics out by now.

I guess I won't feel bad about missing the show tonight.

MDSchafer · Oct 4, 2015

I watched the finale. I liked Strand, but for the life of me can't figure out why he'd want to pick up a random group of survivors and take them aboard his yacht, except that the plot demands that of him. Also, a sail boat would make more sense, but whatever.

nighttimer · Oct 4, 2015

During this final episode, I kept hearing "Road to Nowhere" by the Talking Heads on an endless loop.

SO glad it's over. Let us never speak of it again. This year.

brainstorm77 · Oct 5, 2015

Overall I don't think it was so bad as some of you all think, but it could have been better. I will watch season 2 when it's released which will be at least a year or more is my guess.

Viridian · Oct 5, 2015

The characters I like are dead, and the characters I don't like are still alive.

Boo.

(Did Strand say he was going to take them on his yacht? I'm guessing he will either try to abandon them, or he'll only take the people he wants.)

JohnnyGottaKeyboard · Oct 8, 2015

Well, that's over. Let us never speak of it again. :Shrug:

Alpha Echo · Oct 16, 2015

I like Strand too, and I want to know the story behind his character. Who the heck IS he, and why did he latch onto this group? Then again, he first thought he was only going to escape with Nick, so my guess is he was just using Nick to escape. They got out, and now he's stuck with the whole family.

I liked the female head doctor or whatever. I wanted her to go with them too, but she was done. No hope left in her to survive.

I cried during those last couple scenes. My husband kept saying that Liza should have stayed around longer. He didn't understand why she was killing herself already. I think I get it - no one knew how fast the virus would take hold. She didn't want her son's last image of her to be of her like THAT, and she certainly didn't want him to have to SEE her shot in the head to keep her from coming back to life. Still, hubby said he would have stuck around longer.

I still like the show. I'm definitely not nearly as invested as I am with TWD, but I'll be willing to continue watching season 2. It comes on during the summer during a time when there isn't much else on TV worth watching. So why not?

Haunted_October · Oct 16, 2015

I liked the finale, and the last scenes with Liza were truly moving. I was quite upset with her loss, but I understand why she did it then instead of later.

I can't wait to see how they handle the whole going to sea angle, and digging deeper into who Strand is. I like his character.

Myrealana · Feb 25, 2016

I just binge-watched the first season in the last two days.

I'm not really hooked.

There were no surprises. If you watch TWD, you already know the zombies are going to eat people. You already know FEMA and military couldn't contain it. You already know everyone who dies turns. There's no benefit to the audience of the slow-burn plot. I didn't see the benefit of watching civilization fall from these characters' POV. I didn't feel they added anything to my understanding of the apocalypse. Give me a scientist who spent the last days of civilization desperately trying to find a cure, or a military man who had to choose between orders and his family, just something that actually tells me a different story.

I couldn't tell the characters apart, or remember their names. Two young women with long brown hair. Which is which? Two greasy-haired whiny teenage boys. Two wives for the "you know how I feel about guns" teacher man. Why is everything in pairs?

The only thing I really liked about it was the student from the early episodes who kept trying to tell the school counselor what was what. "When civilization falls, it falls fast." He was right to leave. She and her family of whiny brats would only hold him back.

JasonWrites84 · Feb 25, 2016

I personally enjoyed Fear the Walking Dead more than the original series, but this is solely based on the fact I really enjoy the slow-burn approach and I like the characters. However, I am not sure how they can manage an entire 15 episodes on a boat. The show is going to need to speed up the timeline exponentially, however then we would have two shows that were kind of the same so what's the point. I know the creators said the show will eventually catch up, however if the show wants to build its audience, I know they will need to up the action ante.

I look forward to seeing if they can balance the slow-burn with the action that makes TWD so great. I have a feeling season 2 will be sink or swim for the series.

Fear the Walking Dead

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practical experience, FTW

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