AMC's The Walking Dead Season 1 Discussion & Spoilers

[Meredith]

I always found the idea of the zombie plague spreading too fast for a reasoned military response to be plausible. I think it's reasonable to assume that you would have at least 48 hours of confusion wherein a large portion of your population is taken down/infected.

Now, I don't know about the rest of the world, but in the US, I can see several days of debate and arguing about what to do, with a lot of people arguing for following of CDC quarantine policies and for the search for a cure first before authorizing military action against sick american citizens. I am sure there would be borders and checkpoints set up, with soldiers being authorized to engage if engaged first, but no offensive actions ordered....then it's too late.

Yeah, in the case of a Zombie outbreak our beuacracy would be our greatest weakness.

If a Zombie outbreak happened the best place to be in my opinion would be small town america. Somewhere in Kansas, plenty of flat land around the house to see what is stumbling your way, farm machinery to "plow down" the zombie hordes and plenty of food/fuel in the form of corn in a grain bin, and water that can be easily pumped via a solar powered cattle well (they do exist) or windmill.

 

[Starbreaker]

The year wait is gonna suck. What an awesome series so far. I guess this is basically the prologue.

 

[JD]

I always found the idea of the zombie plague spreading too fast for a reasoned military response to be plausible. I think it's reasonable to assume that you would have at least 48 hours of confusion wherein a large portion of your population is taken down/infected.

Now, I don't know about the rest of the world, but in the US, I can see several days of debate and arguing about what to do, with a lot of people arguing for following of CDC quarantine policies and for the search for a cure first before authorizing military action against sick american citizens. I am sure there would be borders and checkpoints set up, with soldiers being authorized to engage if engaged first, but no offensive actions ordered....then it's too late.

Yeah, in the case of a Zombie outbreak our beuacracy would be our greatest weakness.

If a Zombie outbreak happened the best place to be in my opinion would be small town america. Somewhere in Kansas, plenty of flat land around the house to see what is stumbling your way, farm machinery to "plow down" the zombie hordes and plenty of food/fuel in the form of corn in a grain bin, and water that can be easily pumped via a solar powered cattle well (they do exist) or windmill.

Not to mention the explosive potential of the grain silo.

 

[Morpheus 02]

I always found the idea of the zombie plague spreading too fast for a reasoned military response to be plausible. I think it's reasonable to assume that you would have at least 48 hours of confusion wherein a large portion of your population is taken down/infected.

Now, I don't know about the rest of the world, but in the US, I can see several days of debate and arguing about what to do, with a lot of people arguing for following of CDC quarantine policies and for the search for a cure first before authorizing military action against sick american citizens. I am sure there would be borders and checkpoints set up, with soldiers being authorized to engage if engaged first, but no offensive actions ordered....then it's too late.

Part of the other problem, i think, will be conclicted interests of people with guns. There will definitely be people who will refuse to kill children, even if they they have been bitten. They might even shoot their fellow soldiers.

Also, when things start breaking down, or get frantic cell phone calls, they will abandon their posts to save their loved ones.

Even though Shane wasn't infected, it looked like the military were even shooting law enforcement personnel, even the uninfected. Wanna bet that many would fight back?

And while that in-fighting is goign on, the non-military and generally confused will be vulnerable to death.

And in the midst of all that, what communication is still available?

 

[Silvercrest]

Even though Shane wasn't infected, it looked like the military were even shooting law enforcement personnel, even the uninfected.

True that. Though that makes me wonder why the soldier who peeked into Rick's room didn't just shoot Rick to be on the safe side.

 

[Caliburn24]

I don't buy into the notion that every dead body comes back as a zombie, was it stated in an episode? There were too many bodies outside the hospital in the pilot and the CDC that had not had their brains mangled and were not zombies.

But lets run with that scenario anyways, just for fun.

Lets say that major cities and towns get overrun within the first twenty four hours. So what? Every major military post is fine. Each one has thousands of combat troops, 30-90 days of food, fuel and ammo, self sustaining water production. Miles and miles of stockpiled razor wire and other barriers.

Plus, almost every rural house in the USA has at least one firearm with some ammo. By conservative estimates there are over 300 million guns in the USA, call it one per person. Billions upon billions of rounds of ammunition.

But the survivors we get in the show are a diverse group of idiot rednecks, academics, hippys, and a pair of cops? (Oh, and don't get me started on the Hispanic janitors guarding the retirement home) With what, 3-4 guns at the start, and a seemingly weak survival instinct at best? Those are the people who survive the zombie apocalypse? Hell no.

The zombies couldn't get into a department store for seemingly hours, and you want me to believe that they overran the military and all those kooky militia groups out there?

I have a really tough time buying into that premise.

 

[Landed]

The zombies couldn't get into a department store for seemingly hours, and you want me to believe that they overran the military and all those kooky militia groups out there?

I have a really tough time buying into that premise.

Sorta reminds me of the U.S. Military's attitude towards Vietnam. And Korea. And Iraq. And Afghanistan. Seeing a trend here? Maybe you're over-thinking this whole thing.

 

[PKerr]

I don't buy into the notion that every dead body comes back as a zombie, was it stated in an episode? There were too many bodies outside the hospital in the pilot and the CDC that had not had their brains mangled and were not zombies.

But lets run with that scenario anyways, just for fun.

Lets say that major cities and towns get overrun within the first twenty four hours. So what? Every major military post is fine. Each one has thousands of combat troops, 30-90 days of food, fuel and ammo, self sustaining water production. Miles and miles of stockpiled razor wire and other barriers.

Plus, almost every rural house in the USA has at least one firearm with some ammo. By conservative estimates there are over 300 million guns in the USA, call it one per person. Billions upon billions of rounds of ammunition.

But the survivors we get in the show are a diverse group of idiot rednecks, academics, hippys, and a pair of cops? (Oh, and don't get me started on the Hispanic janitors guarding the retirement home) With what, 3-4 guns at the start, and a seemingly weak survival instinct at best? Those are the people who survive the zombie apocalypse? Hell no.

The zombies couldn't get into a department store for seemingly hours, and you want me to believe that they overran the military and all those kooky militia groups out there?

I have a really tough time buying into that premise.

As much as I like the show, I'm with you one this one.
I was thinking the same types of things from the beginning of the show, there is absolutely NO WAY the military could be overrun.
Even if you ran out of ammo with the tank, just close the doors and drive, DUh!!!

The thing that cracks me up is every time one of the survivors runs past a dead soldier they never pick up their guns.
Oh screw that nifty M-16, M-60, AR15 just laying there, I'm sticking with my shovel, Ax, pickax, cross bow or whatever.
Yes I know those weapons make less noise but I'd take a rifle over a shovel any day.

BTW I'm one of those gun toting Americans that has plenty of guns and ammo to share.
Hell the S&W .40 cal I carry in the truck is 12+1 with 3 extra clips in the gun bag.
we won't even talk about what I keep in the house.

 

[Caliburn24]

In Vietnam, Iraq, wherever, we were/are fighting actual human beings. Beings that can think, plan, operate as units with some fairly advanced tactics and weapons.

They tried to infiltrate our FOBs in Iraq, use sniper attacks or mortars from afar. And they have only killed a relatively handful of us.

A shambling mass of brainless human flesh motivated purely by instinct? I'm sorry, that threat is insignificant compared to fighting actual human beings.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

Of course a "zombie apocalypse" wouldn't go down like The Walking Dead, but that's not really the point. It's been a problem with the genre as soon as it became something that was transferred from infected to uninfected, as opposed to Night of the Living Dead where it was implied that people who died for any reason whatsoever would become reanimated.

The viral concept caught on later, presumably because the public finds it more plausible, even if it really isn't. I recall seeing a number of articles in the past few years making the same point about a zombie virus. It would certainly disrupt things, but not nearly on the level depicted in most zombie movies or books.

You could always write the virus as airborne, but as soon as you do that, you've got a different kind of story.

When Kirkman conceived the book, it wasn't out of a desire to portray what would actually happen in the case of a zombie outbreak. It was to explore the idea of what would happen if one were to keep a camera on the characters in a zombie movie after the credits have rolled. As a result, he has to stick with the genre as it's been established.

As for this season, I liked it overall, but there were problems for me, especially with the CDC storyline. I wish they stuck more closely to the comics. Not because I'm a stickler for adhering to the original work, but because I think the exposition of the last two eps is a mistake.

 

[Jax]

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.

Am guessing it began as airbone infecting most of the population of America and maybe even the world. A certain % of those infected came down with a fever and died while others did not. Then of course the millions already dead would return as zombies and then overwhelm most cities and towns before any military effort could get brought together not too mention how many of the US army (not aboard) would of been killed during inital outbreak. Even then the US military could not of covered all of America and would of been spread thin...Supply lines to get ammo everywhere and supplies etc it gets worse and of course that nots counting people who just ran away from the army out of being scared.

not perfect but good enough it does need addressing in the show however.

 

[Chaos Descending]

I don't buy into the notion that every dead body comes back as a zombie

Sorry. It's an underpinning fact of the comics. If it's not established in the show, then the show deviates too much from the comics.

was it stated in an episode?

No. Hinted at so far, yes.

There were too many bodies outside the hospital in the pilot and the CDC that had not had their brains mangled and were not zombies.

Watch the pilot again. Every body shown has at least a bullet hole in the head.

 

[davejames]

A shambling mass of brainless human flesh motivated purely by instinct? I'm sorry, that threat is insignificant compared to fighting actual human beings.

That's one reason I kinda preferred the super-fast zombies of 21 Days Later and the Dawn of the Dead remake. It made it a bit more plausible that those things could overrun the military and wipe out the world's population in such a short time I thought.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

A shambling mass of brainless human flesh motivated purely by instinct? I'm sorry, that threat is insignificant compared to fighting actual human beings.

That's one reason I kinda preferred the super-fast zombies of 21 Days Later and the Dawn of the Dead remake. It made it a bit more plausible that those things could overrun the military and wipe out the world's population in such a short time I thought.

It'd make a slight difference, but that's about it. The whole thing would still be stamped out pretty quickly. It certainly wouldn't lead to the collapse of civilization.

Biting and scratching is simply an ineffective way to become a pandemic. Otherwise, rabies would be a much bigger problem than it is. It's worth a chuckle that several attempts to make zombies more plausible have involved mutated strains of rabies. Why writers think rabies would have a different effect on a human population than it does on animal ones is beyond me.

But again, as soon as you make it airborne, the idea loses something. You end up with Outbreak instead of Dawn of the Dead.

Sometimes the attempt to make this stuff more plausible works, especially if you find a way to tie it into the point of your story. But the writer has to realize when those details don't matter. Otherwise, you end up with midichlorians.

 

[davejames]

Now, I don't know about the rest of the world, but in the US, I can see several days of debate and arguing about what to do, with a lot of people arguing for following of CDC quarantine policies and for the search for a cure first before authorizing military action against sick american citizens. I am sure there would be borders and checkpoints set up, with soldiers being authorized to engage if engaged first, but no offensive actions ordered....then it's too late.

Yeah, the military works great when it has time to fully prepare, but I think Katrina and 911 showed that when there's a huge, chaotic event from out of the blue, they have to scramble and stumble around for a plan just like everybody else.

Plus this is apparently a world where people have never heard of zombies, so everyone's first inclination when they see a love one who's infected is probably not to blow their brains out. Even weeks into the outbreak, people are still going to be hesistant to take that step, and that's probably what ultimately does humanity in.

 

[Guy Gardener]

In the flashback we saw that the military was trying to take out "potential" zombies by executing every civilian they saw, between th and the suisides, it would have helped the apocalypse along and anyway the places that can hold up a significant population for months are going to stay out of th e lime light for lot longer than 2 months so that there's a chance when they finally have to come to ground.

 

[Corran Horn]

In the flashback we saw that the military was trying to take out "potential" zombies by executing every civilian they saw, between th and the suisides, it would have helped the apocalypse along and anyway the places that can hold up a significant population for months are going to stay out of th e lime light for lot longer than 2 months so that there's a chance when they finally have to come to ground.

I was wondering about that. Were those people in the hospital that were executed ones that had been bitten? Or were they just perfectly fine people that were 'in the way'?

You might be right, if only because Shane hid from them when he was fine.

 

[RJDiogenes]

You people don't understand. When the Zombie Apocalypse comes, civilization collapses overnight. It just does.

Anyone here watching the walking dead (on AMC) and the High School of the Dead (anime network)?

I have been watching High School of the dead and it plays out a LOT like the Walking Dead, I tend to call it "The Walking Dead, Anime Edition".

I'm not sure if I have that. I'll have to check.

 

[Reverend]

I don't know if anyone has read World War Z by Max Brooks, but that book posits a number or reasons why a modern military would fail to hold ground (at least initially) against a world overrun by shambling corpses. I think there's a couple of chapters on the experiences of a US soldier who fought all the way through. There's all sorts about how bombs, heavy machine guns and flechette launchers were worse than useless as for the most part, all they'd do is shred the body and blow off limbs with only a small proportion getting adequate head-shots.

Hell even nukes would be of limited, if any use since they'd "only" incinerate the walkers within a few miles radius. Beyond that it's "just" various degrees of burns and radiation exposure. Even if you hit a densely infested area like say a major city, unless you're willing to carpet nuke the whole place and spread fallout over half the continent, all a single nuke will do it take out maybe ten thousand. The population of NYC is what? 8 million? Even with an optimistically low infection ratio that's a hell of a lot of zombies.

Now imagine cities like Tokyo, New Delhi and Seoul; really high density population with that kind of rampant infection and then imagine what happens when they run out of the living and start spreading out through the surrounding countryside. It's no wonder the military wouldn't be able to hold against those numbers. After all, what good is a tank if the enemy can't be intimidated and will just swarm over minefields, defensive lines and razor wire, no matter how many of their fellows they have to climb over. As we saw in the opening episodes, you may be safe inside a tank, but you can't exactly stay in the thing forever.

From what I've seen of the show so far I suspect the show writers (and possibly the original comic writers) have read that book as it all seams about in line with the book's period after "the great panic." Basically by this point I imagine the bulk of the surviving military has fallen back to remote defensible positions in the north where they can dig in and wait for winter. Everyone else would be basically left to fend for themselves and the fall back positions would be kept secret to prevent stragglers and refugees bringing the horde to their doorstep.

 

[PsychoPere]

I don't know if anyone has read World War Z by Max Brooks [...]

It's been mentioned numerous times in this thread.

From what I've seen of the show so far I suspect the show writers (and possibly the original comic writers) have read that book [...]

It's possible that some of the writers on the show have, though I doubt Robert Kirkman (the comics creator) has. The Walking Dead started in 2003, and World War Z was published in 2006.