The Walking Dead Renewed For Season 2
- Thread starter Jax
- Start date
Zombies win again!
I always thought a zombie show would be successful. Don't know why it took so long!
Wow, that surprises me, only because I never saw any advertising for this show. The only reason I knew about it was because I was watching the movie Halloween on that channel the day it premiered, and they had a little clock in the corner counting down the time until it premiered. Before that day I had never heard a thing about it.
I'm happy about this though, it is a great show so far.
I'm happy about this though, it is a great show so far.
I'm indifferent to zombies but it's nice to see a quality production rewarded.
There's nothing stopping AMC (or HBO or Showtime) from doing something similar with a space opera series. People are desperate for anything good to watch and weirdness such as undead cannibals or spacefaring aliens are no obstacle.
I don't see why it should be an obviously successful topic. It's too gory and violent, zombies are boring, the range of story types may be too narrow, and horror in general on TV has not been a huge success, certainly not lately - there are a lot of elements that make it tricky to bring to the screen. There are plenty of other premises I'd point to first as a slam-dunk for success.
There's nothing stopping AMC (or HBO or Showtime) from doing something similar with a space opera series. People are desperate for anything good to watch and weirdness such as undead cannibals or spacefaring aliens are no obstacle.
I don't see why it should be an obviously successful topic. It's too gory and violent, zombies are boring, the range of story types may be too narrow, and horror in general on TV has not been a huge success, certainly not lately - there are a lot of elements that make it tricky to bring to the screen. There are plenty of other premises I'd point to first as a slam-dunk for success.
Yep, if it was about the zombies then it would've crashed and burned. Zombies are boring after awhile. The human characters make it or break it.
I just saw the premiere over the weekend. I want to get in on the main discussion thread but just know its loaded with spoilers. I can't see ep. 2 till Friday.
While its true the show is about the humans, zombies only serve as a backdrop, it is nice to see a supernatural show with something besides vampires or ghosts as a backdrop to explore the human experience/psyche.
While its true the show is about the humans, zombies only serve as a backdrop, it is nice to see a supernatural show with something besides vampires or ghosts as a backdrop to explore the human experience/psyche.
If you want to at least read some of the thread regarding episode one, discussion of episode two starts with post #172 by label, which is on page 5 if you're using 40 posts per page. Spoilers based on events in the original comics have all been posted within spoiler tags.
After watching the first episode, I have to say the characters were definitely not interesting. There's time to fix that, but if one truly thinks the characters will carry the show, then that doesn't bode well for this show.
People are definitely watching it for the zombies.
People are definitely watching it for the zombies.
On Fox, maybe. On AMC, the audience doesn't give a flip about zombies and want to see a good story.
Have you watched it? The characters are boring. The guy from Jericho was the only even remotely interesting one. All I'm saying is that if you guys are right and the characters are what will keep people watching beyond the initial "Zombies!" phase, then perhaps the ratings will fall.
I don't necessarily agree with your premise, though. "Zombies!" will be enough for a lot of people.
The characters are fine. I truly doubt that zombies are enough to get the kind of ratings on AMC that the show is getting. It's not that kind of audience.
The way TV shows are going nowadays, zombies will not be enough for any audience long-term. TV audiences are very tough on anything outside the "safe" genres (police procedurals, etc).
The way TV shows are going nowadays, zombies will not be enough for any audience long-term. TV audiences are very tough on anything outside the "safe" genres (police procedurals, etc).
In terms of characters, as you all should already know, this kind of stuff takes time to develop. I mean sure, their personalities and well characterization has to grab you immediately otherwise you lose interest. And some of them are even characatures or cliched stereotypes but practically every other show has them. These are people in zombieland of Atlanta. Not dissing on anybody from Atlanta, but you know what I'm saying, they're just regular people trapped together in a very chaotic situation. We just haven't gotten to really know anybody yet. If anything he people who think these characters are a dime a dozen and boring it probably mostly reflects on the actors they casted, which personally I think is fine. Michael Rooker so far plays a racist redneck pretty convincingly. I'll keep harping on this, but of all the other crap that premiered this season, this is a total blessing.
And they have time to make the characters interesting before the "omg zombies!" phase wears off. But nobody saw a a commercial for a show about a zombie apocalypse and went "Zombies are boring, but I'm going to watch this for the characters!"