Fear the Walking Dead Season 1 discussion and spoilers.
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I liked it. Decent enough characters (who don't seem Grade A zombie killers that could wipe out a dozen zombies without breaking a sweat).
The drug beginning made a lot of sense. Added a real sense of "what's real?" to the characters' reactions.
This show is nothing like The Strain. That's a show where a bunch of self-appointed saviors all magically bump into each other. And then self-sabotage to the point of failure.
And unlike TWD, which is a post-apocalypse show, this is actually a zombie show.
The drug beginning made a lot of sense. Added a real sense of "what's real?" to the characters' reactions.
This show is nothing like The Strain. That's a show where a bunch of self-appointed saviors all magically bump into each other. And then self-sabotage to the point of failure.
And unlike TWD, which is a post-apocalypse show, this is actually a zombie show.
Short fuse with this one. Disagree on the Strain--it has staked out its territory so to speak after a questionable beginning. Not sure you can go all golly gosh on a zombie show that has years of traction already. Nothing special here.
I really enjoyed it... Kind of lost sight of it being a zombie show a couple of times while they were dealing with "real world" issues... But really, I like the set up and I like the characters. I also like the fact that (at least up to this point), while we're going to see the outbreak start, we're still not going to get a plausible explanation as to why it is happening.. these are just ordinary people, doing ordinary things (adding in a drug addled kid) and they are about to be thrust into a horrible situation..
Count me in for more!
Count me in for more!
Unlike TWD--where communications already fell while Rick was in a coma, FTWD has some obligation to show how an outbreak would explode all over social media and general news, as people demand answers. This time, there's no avoiding that issue, otherwise, its just more soap opera and the ill-prepared running / dying from zombies.
I think you'll see alot of that next episode. This episode it was still at the "deep internet conspiracy" phase with no real concrete coverage getting out. The youtube video we see in the first episode is the first cracks of the plague making it into the awareness of the general public. It should mushroom from there.
Remember, in a world where zombie fiction doesn't exist, it's actually going to take alot of convincing footage and live telecasts to get past peoples inherent "it's a fake" reaction.
Remember, in a world where zombie fiction doesn't exist, it's actually going to take alot of convincing footage and live telecasts to get past peoples inherent "it's a fake" reaction.
Yeah I sadly have to agree. I have no problem with a slow burn or slower-paced storytelling when there's actually a good story and strong characters to watch. But there was surprisingly very little of that here.
The characters look like they might have potential down the road as a group of survivors, but I can't say I have much interest at ALL right now in their petty domestic issues and family drama-- which apparently is something we're going to see a lot more of this season as they sloooowly try to figure out what's going on.
I'm also not sure it's a good sign that the most likeable character is a jittery crackhead who can't walk straight and makes really bad decisions at every turn.
I will say there were a handful of nicely creepy and foreboding moments, like when they get stopped on the freeway and later see what actually happened online, but there wasn't nearly enough of that for my taste.
Maybe, but the problem is the freeway incident is not the first one to go down. There should already be stories popping up everywhere about people (like that girl) suddenly going crazy and eating people, since it's pretty unlikely they're all doing it in some quiet, out of the way drug den.
I mean when that one guy high on bath salts ate some poor homeless man under the freeway a couple years ago, that shit was all OVER the news and social media almost immediately. And that was just one guy.
^^ Fair points all, but let me also interject that this is not set in modern time.. This is several years ago.. Yes, smart phones exist, and social media is already in full swing, but even just a handful of years ago, it didn't spread quite as quickly.
I'll also go as far as saying that to the average teen/adult dealing with their own lives and issues, a few scattered reports of weird stuff going on might not make a dent, especially if it's not yet viral. My kids (18 and 15 respectively) hardly know about much other than what I tell them about or they see on the news when I watch. Other than pop culture, they are woefully unaware of more than just the biggest events going on in the news. (Yes, a flaw in our parenting, I fully admit)...
I'll also go as far as saying that to the average teen/adult dealing with their own lives and issues, a few scattered reports of weird stuff going on might not make a dent, especially if it's not yet viral. My kids (18 and 15 respectively) hardly know about much other than what I tell them about or they see on the news when I watch. Other than pop culture, they are woefully unaware of more than just the biggest events going on in the news. (Yes, a flaw in our parenting, I fully admit)...
Ah, but that incident happened in a world (ours) where zombie fiction is at an all time high, so of course the news outlets grabbed on to a story about a "real life zombie attack".
I imagine in the world of Walking Dead bath salts probably became known as the "Dahmer drug" or some such instead of the "zombie drug".
In fact, that would be a neat way for the show to go with it. Have the media speculating that there's a new highly addictive form of bath salts behind the rash of biting attacks.
The characters look like they might have potential down the road as a group of survivors, but I can't say I have much interest at ALL right now in their petty domestic issues and family drama-- which apparently is something we're going to see a lot more of this season as they sloooowly try to figure out what's going on.
I'm also not sure it's a good sign that the most likeable character is a jittery crackhead who can't walk straight and makes really bad decisions at every turn.
Is it bad that I don't like any of them at all and I just want them all to die and come back in the main show so Michonne can chop their zombie heads off? That's the way I was feeling about ten minutes in.
The son's supposed to be a street-living crackhead but they went out of their way to try and make him look like a boy band refugee. The girl is just a flat-out walking teen-girl stereotype. ("Like, OMG I hate my mom's boyfriend and my brother and stupid school and stupid life and I'm so outta here!") The boyfriend is the type of "thought-provoking" schoolteacher fantasy that ONLY exists in the fevered imaginations of TV and movie writers, and I just want mom dead on principal for raising the brats and dating the myth.
Maybe they get less annoying as time goes by, but they've only got six episodes to manage it. I'm not very hopeful...
Some people are saying that the name is stupid, but what if, like "The Walking Dead", the title "Fear The Walking Dead" is a double entendre? What if the title is implying that the true villains of the show will not be the zombies, but people like Rick Grimes (obviously not actually Rick, but other people of like mind)?
Well even in a world without zombie movies I think people would sit up and take notice if there were people eating other people in the streets.
I agree though that probably would be the assumption most people would make-- that it was some kind of crazy reaction to bath salts or some other drug. And hell, maybe it was some engineered drug that slipped out and caused the entire outbreak to begin with (not that they'd ever reveal that on the show, of course).
One thing to keep in mind is that the rumors of walkers or an epidemic clearly was spreading. Many parents were clearly holding their children out of school (and not just on that final half day). That kid brought a knife to school because he knew he'd need protection.
It's just that our particular group of people had a crisis of their own that they were dealing with, so they weren't paying super close attention to the outside news.
That empty park was a clear sign that people knew they shouldn't be outside. When that old guy died in the hospital, the doctors and nurses knew they needed to get him downstairs immediately, they didn't dilly dally and screw around.
So, assuming we get a decent portion of this show set at the high school, what are the odds that the listening device/eavesdropping/teacher monitoring thing that the principal was using to listen in on different classrooms will be used sometime in the next few weeks?
I'm not sure that quite fits with the premise that "everyone is already infected". Some drughead or meth cook couldn't have come up with something that would infect 7 billion people all at once. It's got to be something either natural (including meteor/alien/etc) or some bio weapon a government came up with in a lab. I don't even think it could be one of those "let's build a soldier that can never die" outbreaks, as that doesn't seem like the type of thing that would infect 7 billion people. (You wouldn't want to make a supersoldier that will just as easily turn all of your enemies into supersoldiers too.)
But yeah, this show isn't about answering that question, nor should it be. It's not about these guys surviving and then making a cross country trip to Virginia to meet Rick's group in a few years either.
Based on all evidence, no. Even the word "zombie" seems to be non-existent.
I liked the first episode good enough. It had a sense of dread and foreboding about it that I enjoyed. I like Cliff Curtis and Kim Dickens and will be interested in seeing their characters change from high school employees to fighters of the undead.
My one complaint is the same complaint I have about The Strain. We see all these instances where it's getting dangerous to be outside because of the zombies/vampires. There are sirens, police helicopters and police cars everywhere at night. In the daytime, it's business as usual, everybody going about their routine like nothing was out of the ordinary. People are casually strolling around without getting eaten.
I'm really interested to see the society breaking down portion, since we've never really seen that in a zombie movie or show, except for in the first five minutes of the Dawn of the Dead remake and 28 Days Later.
The only thing I'm not really interested in is when these characters are in the post-apocalypse, since we already have that show with the original The Walking Dead. I'd love to see this done as an anthology series where season one deals with this family, maybe season two deals with the CDC, season three with the National Guard, season four dealing with the government. All spanning the same six weeks where society breaks down.
My one complaint is the same complaint I have about The Strain. We see all these instances where it's getting dangerous to be outside because of the zombies/vampires. There are sirens, police helicopters and police cars everywhere at night. In the daytime, it's business as usual, everybody going about their routine like nothing was out of the ordinary. People are casually strolling around without getting eaten.
I'm really interested to see the society breaking down portion, since we've never really seen that in a zombie movie or show, except for in the first five minutes of the Dawn of the Dead remake and 28 Days Later.
The only thing I'm not really interested in is when these characters are in the post-apocalypse, since we already have that show with the original The Walking Dead. I'd love to see this done as an anthology series where season one deals with this family, maybe season two deals with the CDC, season three with the National Guard, season four dealing with the government. All spanning the same six weeks where society breaks down.
