AMC's The Walking Dead Season 1 Discussion & Spoilers

[RJDiogenes]

Mr. Adventure wrote:

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I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try but somehow I doubt the internet relays and cell towers would be working. Maybe if they could find a sat phone (where the hell would you find those?) they could try calling military or other states

Of course they wouldn't be working, but the idea is to show that stuff isn't working. All he did was try one landline; he didn't try a cell phone, didn't get static from a broadcast or Satellite radio, didn't watch snow on a TV, didn't get endless 'page not found' messages on the Web. All of these things would contribute to the growing knowledge that whatever has happened is widespread.

sojourner wrote:

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You do know the internet is more than just that box on your desk? If the phones don't work and the power in general is out, no way in hell is the internet going to be working.

No, I had no idea. I doubt if the police station uses dial up. They either have cable or a satellite dish, which are independent of the phones.

[Tulin]

Mark_Nguyen wrote:

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Max Brooks' excellent "World War Z" is set looking back ten years after mankind "won" the war on the zombie hordes and has quite a few ideas on what to do globally to adapt to a world filled with the undead:

In particular, his zombies didn't need to breathe so the oceans are still teaming with them walking on the lower surface of the ocean, and they emerge on the beaches periodically to cause trouble - so no land mass of any size is truly safe. Others got bloated in the seawater and simply floated around for ages, making even fishing a hazard to the refugee ships, and still others simply climbed up archor lines and got onto the smaller ones. I'm not sure how the zombies work in this series yet but they do seem to breathe and gasp, suggesting respiration or at least the memory of it.

Mark

LMAO!!!!!

I cannot be THE ONLY person that read that as "Mel Brooks'...."

Hell, if the ignorant Americans can misconstrue the wonderful Martin Freeman and MORGAN Freeman, I can do THIS!

[Aeon]

Take a guess who Max Brooks' father is.

[Tulin]

Take a guess who Martin Freeman's father is.....



Errrr.......I got nothin'.

[RoJoHen]

RJDiogenes wrote:

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No, I had no idea. I doubt if the police station uses dial up. They either have cable or a satellite dish, which are independent of the phones.

But the cable and satellite companies would still need to be up and running. Even if some of the employees survived the Zombie Apocalypse, I doubt they would stay at work just to make sure the internet is running.

[Mr. Adventure]

The satellite thing makes sense though because I don't know that the characters would know this isn't a regional phonemena somehow. Or maybe Europe wasn't hit or whatever. Unlikely but worth a shot of desperation.

[RoJoHen]

Perhaps. Just because we didn't see it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

[IndyJones]

Tulin wrote:

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Hell, if the ignorant Americans...

Stay classy.

[sojourner]

RJDiogenes wrote:

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Of course they wouldn't be working, but the idea is to show that stuff isn't working. All he did was try one landline; he didn't try a cell phone, didn't get static from a broadcast or Satellite radio, didn't watch snow on a TV, didn't get endless 'page not found' messages on the Web. All of these things would contribute to the growing knowledge that whatever has happened is widespread.

No, I had no idea. I doubt if the police station uses dial up. They either have cable or a satellite dish, which are independent of the phones.

Phone communications these days run over IP just like internet data. If the phones are down, most likely internet is down as well. It's all 1's and 0's.

[RJDiogenes]

If you wake up to a Zombie Apocalypse, your primary concerns are going to be finding help and getting information. You're not going to just try one random internal phone in a hospital and give up. You're going to look for other phones, for cell phones, for Blackberries, you're going to turn on TVs and radios, you're going to look for cars with XM receivers, you're going to try the Internet at the hospital, at home, at the Police Station. Like Mr. Adventure says, you'd have no idea how widespread the phenomenon is. And most people, rather than assuming that nothing works, would continue to try these things over and over no matter how many times they fail to work. It would have been to the story's advantage to show this, demonstrating vividly how serious the situation is, as well as the character's growing fear and frustration. As it is, I don't remember there being any evidence that this world even has Internet or cell phones or XM.

[Zachary Smith]

RJDiogenes wrote:

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If you wake up to a Zombie Apocalypse, your primary concerns are going to be finding help and getting information. You're not going to just try one random internal phone in a hospital and give up. You're going to look for other phones, for cell phones, for Blackberries, you're going to turn on TVs and radios, you're going to look for cars with XM receivers, you're going to try the Internet at the hospital, at home, at the Police Station. Like Mr. Adventure says, you'd have no idea how widespread the phenomenon is. And most people, rather than assuming that nothing works, would continue to try these things over and over no matter how many times they fail to work. It would have been to the story's advantage to show this, demonstrating vividly how serious the situation is, as well as the character's growing fear and frustration. As it is, I don't remember there being any evidence that this world even has Internet or cell phones or XM.

Because watching a person try one dead phone or one dead computer after another makes for RIVETING viewing, right?

I'm happy they didn't dwell on this aspect. Everyone has been familiar with the basic initial play-out of a zombie-apocalypse since "Night of the Living Dead" in 1968. We've SEEN the origin of the event story--SEVERAL times in SEVERAL movies. Anyone familiar enough with the concept of zombies to bother tuning in has likely seen at LEAST one of these. Personally, I'm glad it was NOT rehashed here and we're able to get on to traveling some new ground.

[RoJoHen]

RJDiogenes wrote:

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If you wake up to a Zombie Apocalypse, your primary concerns are going to be finding help and getting information. You're not going to just try one random internal phone in a hospital and give up. You're going to look for other phones, for cell phones, for Blackberries, you're going to turn on TVs and radios, you're going to look for cars with XM receivers, you're going to try the Internet at the hospital, at home, at the Police Station. Like Mr. Adventure says, you'd have no idea how widespread the phenomenon is. And most people, rather than assuming that nothing works, would continue to try these things over and over no matter how many times they fail to work. It would have been to the story's advantage to show this, demonstrating vividly how serious the situation is, as well as the character's growing fear and frustration. As it is, I don't remember there being any evidence that this world even has Internet or cell phones or XM.

Yes, if I were to actually wake up during a situation like this, I would try to contact people. How do we know he didn't? Just because we didn't see it happen doesn't mean it didn't happen. There are things in storytelling that you just don't need to elaborate on.

[J.T.B.]

If you wake up to a Zombie Apocalypse, your primary concerns are going to be finding help and getting information. You're not going to just try one random internal phone in a hospital and give up. You're going to look for other phones, for cell phones, for Blackberries, you're going to turn on TVs and radios, you're going to look for cars with XM receivers, you're going to try the Internet at the hospital, at home, at the Police Station. Like Mr. Adventure says, you'd have no idea how widespread the phenomenon is. And most people, rather than assuming that nothing works, would continue to try these things over and over no matter how many times they fail to work. It would have been to the story's advantage to show this, demonstrating vividly how serious the situation is, as well as the character's growing fear and frustration. As it is, I don't remember there being any evidence that this world even has Internet or cell phones or XM.

There seemed to be a fair amount of time compression in the scenes between him waking up and him leaving the hospital; he was a lot surer on his feet when he found the exit. He may have tried numerous computers and radios and TVs and cell phones, I don't think the viewer needs to be shown all of that. As for the storytelling, I think it was more effective how it was done, leaving the audience in the dark until the situation could be dramatically related first-hand by the survivor. Those retelling scenes were some of the best, IMO.

--Justin

[the G-man]

Vendikarr wrote:

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As of the current issue, the zombies have been around for over a year. As time passes, they have been getting weaker and easier to avoid. It appears they are slowly rotting away. It hasn't been stated explicitly, but it appears to me that humanity may be able to outlast them.

That would probably be true if the only way to create a zombie was to have someone infected by an existing zombie. But it is also established in the comics that

everyone who dies and doesn't have their brain removed becomes a zombie--everyone is infected with the virus already.

Currently, on average 146,357 people die each day. Therefore, it would appear that every day would bring at least a few tens of thousand new zombies.

[Vendikarr]

the G-man wrote:

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That would probably be true if the only way to create a zombie was to have someone infected by an existing zombie. But it is also established in the comics that

everyone who dies and doesn't have their brain removed becomes a zombie--everyone is infected with the virus already.

Currently, on average 146,357 people die each day. Therefore, it would appear that every day would bring at least a few tens of thousand new zombies.

True. But...

I think it's safe to say that the majority of zombies were created in that one month period where Rick was in his coma. And as such, we could expect the majority of them to die out at about the same time. If it was a world wide event, I would guess the number of human survivors to be about 1 to 10% of current humans, given the number of survivors we have run across compared to number of zombies.

Knowing that any death results in the creation of a zombie, survivors will be able to adopt new death rituals in disposing of bodies, such as we saw in the most recent issues of the comic,
where a spike is driven thru the head of the recently dead.

I think if they can outlive the majority of the existing zombies they have a good chance of somehow rebuilding the world.