AMC's The Walking Dead Season 1 Discussion & Spoilers

[Aragorn]

RJDonner&Blitzen wrote:

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And I'm really happy the old guy survived. The actors on this show range from good to really good, but he is without a doubt the best.

Of course he survived. He's in the opening credits. And so is the blonde.

[Morpheus 02]

Cutter John wrote:

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One more thing I'm puzzled by. Shane pretty much watched govt troops hunting down and shooting innocent people like dogs in the opening scene. Yet he's all gung ho for the group to going rushing straight towards the nearest military base. The hell?

He's probably thinking there;s a difference between those secial shock troops (CDC related, in his mind) vs. regular guys like him.

Do we know what was going on just prior to Shane visiting Rick in his room? what was his understanding of what th etroops were doing?

Also, was he the one who locked up the room that Rick found, that was marked, and had the dead's hands tyring to reach through?

[Tom Hendricks]

PsychoPere wrote:

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Three problems. 1) With most of the issues, there is no passage of time between issues at all. For the most part, each issue carries on from the one directly before it. In fact, at the moment, I cannot recall a single instance where there was a passage of time between issues (though I admit my memory may be lacking, as it has been some time since I've read any issues).

2) You're simultaneously creating and trying to explain a "continuity issue" that doesn't even exist in the first place for those of us who have read the comics. We want the show to deviate. If it doesn't, if it literally adapted only what was on the printed page, there'd be no point to adapting for television at all.

3) Shane was dead at this point in the comics. How's that for a "continuity issue"?

As I said, I haven't read the comic and if there is no real passage of time then okay. I know many writers, would go back and add or subtract things if the had a chance after things are published. (Steven King comes to mind) I know the writer of the comic is part of the writing team, so maybe the whole CDC thing would have been something he would have liked to do.

I was trying to give a plausible reason why events not happening in the comic would have on the show. Like when the group of four returned to the camp during the Walkers attack. We only saw them running the last bit up the road to the camp. We don't know if they actually used a car for the majority of the trip and it ran out of gas and had to foot the rest. In the long run, its not important to the story how they got back to camp relatively quickly, but based on many responses here I think some people wanted to know how they were able to do it.

I was aware that the character of Shane was already dead, I think I know how and don't want to repeat it for those who don't want to know. However I don't know when it actually happen. Is it before they leave the camp area?

[Mike Farley]

Tom Hendricks wrote:

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As I said, I haven't read the comic and if there is no real passage of time then okay. I know many writers, would go back and add or subtract things if the had a chance after things are published. (Steven King comes to mind) I know the writer of the comic is part of the writing team, so maybe the whole CDC thing would have been something he would have liked to do.

I believe that Kirkman has stated that when he wrote the book he didn't know the CDC was in Atlanta or he would have included a visit there.

I was aware that the character of Shane was already dead, I think I know how and don't want to repeat it for those who don't want to know. However I don't know when it actually happen. Is it before they leave the camp area?

Yeah it was before they left camp. We've actually already seen the scene that led up to Shane's death, but then the series took a left turn.

[JD]

I'm know I'm late coming to this thread, but I just wanted to say how utterly amazing I think this show is. I've actually been watching it since the pilot but I somehow missed this thread.
I don't know how anyone one else feels, but IMO that finale was one of the best hours of TV I have ever seen in my life. (I have to admit, I almost lost it when Dale refused to leave Andrea.)

[Obiwanshinobi]

I loved this season. One of my new favorite shows and will definitely stay tuned next season, but my one complaint with the finale was that it felt a bit abrupt. They get to the CDC, use up all the hot water when told not to, shit goes down and then they all have to leave again.

[Zombie]

Temis the Red-Nosed Vorta wrote:

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I wonder if the real CDC is rigged to explode in a BIG ASS fireball?

I bet a bunch of people are asking them right now. Heck I bet some of the employees who've seen the show are asking the question.

[Zombie]

Cutter John wrote:

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One more thing I'm puzzled by. Shane pretty much watched govt troops hunting down and shooting innocent people like dogs in the opening scene. Yet he's all gung ho for the group to going rushing straight towards the nearest military base. The hell?

That's a good point.

I chalk it up to the craziness going on at the time. When they first showed the troops you could hear them say, "check them" before shooting. I'm thinking since they were right next to that door the troops panicked and thought they were going to be future Zombies and shot them. Notice after they shot them the real Zombies opened the door and said, "SURPRISE!" and ate the troops. Well they said it as well as a Zombie could which is more like "grrrrrrrrrr"

During the hospital scene you could see nurses and people moving with the military. They weren't all being lined up and shot. The hospital probably got attacked, the troops panicked, and then people just started shooting.

You could also hear them say, "fall back" over the radio. I think they were getting overwhelmed.

What's interesting is where are all the bodies when Rick woke up? Should have been a lot more in those hallways.

See how I rationalized it? Shane probably did the same thing.

[Snaploud]

Zombie wrote:

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I bet a bunch of people are asking them right now. Heck I bet some of the employees who've seen the show are asking the question.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.

I imagine management saying something like this, though:

"Yeah, that would be nice...truth is...I break this vial...planet Earth is fucked..."

[Canadave]

Just saw the last episode and loved it. I don't know why I kept hearing murmurs of discontent about it.

Also, I can't believe I didn't realize last week that the guy playing Jenner also played Truman's best friend in The Truman Show. That was a little distracting.

Finally, anyone else catch the Dr. Strangelove nod in the set design of the CDC?

[the_wildcard]

I just saw the finale myself. My only complaint was the season was a bit too short. I really hope next season we find out a little bit more about how the rest of the world is doing....

[Snaploud]

Canadave wrote:

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Also, I can't believe I didn't realize last week that the guy playing Jenner also played Truman's best friend in The Truman Show. That was a little distracting.

"The last thing I would ever do is lie to you, Truman."

"My name's Rick."

"Whatever. I'm only here for one episode."

[Temis the Vorta]

Aragorn wrote:

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Of course he survived. He's in the opening credits. And so is the blonde.

Ahhh, but it was the season finale. Next season could have a new cast. Still I'd be surprised if either of those die anytime soon, and ditto for Rick, Lori, Shane, Rick & Lori's son, and Glenn. Those seem like the core team.

And my quatloos say, Jim will be back, and not as a zombie.

Zombie wrote:

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I bet a bunch of people are asking them right now. Heck I bet some of the employees who've seen the show are asking the question.

Finally, anyone else catch the Dr. Strangelove nod in the set design of the CDC?

Yepper, the big circular light thing in the main room was cribbed from the War Room in Dr. Strangelove, which famously doesn't exist under the White House. A deliberate wink to nonsenscial Hollywood depictions of real places, complete with BIG ASS fireballs!

[SG-17]

Gentlemen! You can't shoot in here, this is the big room!

[Caliburn24]

I just finished watching the last episode, and very much enjoyed the series as a whole.

But I am more and more having a problem with one of the core ideas of the premise. Namely that the group of functioning retards that are our heroes could survive as long as they while any governmental forces or other organized forces(so far as we know) have been wiped out.

Due to the families in the show being largely intact, it seems a reasonable assumption to assume that whatever causes "zombie-ism" is not air-born. You get scratched or bit by a walker and you turn into one, simple enough.

So how the heck did the world fall apart from that?

I served in the United States Army in Iraq, I had bad guys shoot at me, try to blow me up and mortar me all day long. There is no way a bunch of brainless shambling walkers are going to destroy any country with a modern military. It just ain't gonna happen.

Let's just use Atlanta as an example. Everyone in it is infected. Several million walkers. Our engineers could throw a ring of hesco barriers around the city in a day or two, topped with concertina wire with a scoped rifleman posted every quarter mile or so. Every few miles we set up a kill zone. One Bradley fighting vehicle equipped with speakers playing music to suck in the walkers. Our standard loadout in a Bradley(in the Armored Cav anyways) was 1500 rounds for the 25mm, and 2200 7.62mm for the co-ax. With the optics on the Brad every shot can be a dead on kill shot. And we can sit in place for three days or so running on just our internal fuel.

My scout platoon of six Brads and thirty soldiers could thus kill 22,200 walkers using just our vehicle combat loads. Plus another 6,300 from our personal rifle loads. All done while totally impervious to attack.

Maybe Hollywood just doesn't understand what sort of firepower the military has at their disposal, but it is plot holes like that, that make watching the show more and more annoying to me.