f13.net

The Walking Dead spinoff has a name - Fear the Walking Dead. 

https://twitter.com/RobertKirkman/status/581526796958584832 (https://twitter.com/RobertKirkman/status/581526796958584832)

As this one theoretically focuses on California and the early days of the Zombie Plague (at the start) and has no tie to the comics (that we know of), I am really curious about it.  They've already signed for 2 seasons...

That's a terrible name.

Yeah - I've seen three polls already, and it is coming up between 75 and 80% 'bad name' on those polls.

I'd have gone with one of the other names they've used for Walkers in the past - I mean, how can you pass on an LA set show called Skinjobs?

There are literally something like 15 Walking Dead based projects in development right now. Set course for oversaturation, warp factor a billion.

I hope one is called Son of the Walking Dead, starring Carl.  :why_so_serious:

The comic, the first series, talking dead, the spin-off and....?  Are you counting video games?

They should've gone full CSI.

The Walking Dead: Los Angeles

I don't know what they all are, it was just a comment from Kirkman or someone related. I assume at least some are video games.

That would have been a better title.

Lee Ving is doing all of the music; it was in his contract rider. Early reports of the title leave out a very important colon.

Only if we get to go to Miami and bring back David Caruso. :grin:

(http://twilight.ponychan.net/chan/arch/src/130373125950.jpg)

Thoughts on the premiere? 

I thought it was ok, but a bit slow.  Not a game changer.  A lot of inconsistencies on how much knowledge is out there.  My biggest complaints (one current, one probable future):

Just from the first episode I can tell this is going to be slow as shit when it comes to moving along.  Also all the teen kids need to be dropped in a pit of zombies by the Governor.

I warned some others that this looks like it's going to be a real slow burn, with the first season ending around the moment the main cast realizes that no one is coming and it's really all gone to shit.

I don't mind a slow burn. If things escalate too quickly then we rapidly get to a show that isn't all that different from the main series. I also expect some inconsistencies and some handwaving of how much the government knows, who has been told, how quickly the infection is spreading (remember it doesn't actually make you sick or kill you it just brings you back after you die) and whether or not the government has been keeping it quiet as much as possible.

Yeah, it's supposed to be a slow burn.  If we went right into full zombie apocalypse mode it would just be the other show.

The slow burn is necessary. They don't understand what the fuck is going on and shit's being kept from the general public. I don't expect all hell to break loose until halfway through the season.

Nobody was expecting to see a herd in episode one. However, some of us were hoping for a faster and more interesting start. I got a bit tired of the obvious moments where characters were put in positions (often by their own choice) that would likely get them killed in the flagship. For example, being strapped down next to someone very, very ill?

Also, if that many kids are missing class because of things people have experienced or seen due to the outbreak, I'd think it impossible not to see more news coverage - the government can't stop every news and blog entity out there.

I knew that showing a world in transition to the world of WD would be hard... and it is showing. I didn't hate it, but I hoped for better.

Anyone else wonder for a half second if the blond at the start might have been the same actress as the girl at the start of the flagship pilot? The ages do not work out, but I did wonder for a second before I realized that...

So I didn't like this very much. None of the characters were the least bit interesting to me except for the black teen drug dealer and well...

The music REALLY got on my tits. It was SO over the top for the scenes it was being played in. It's like they wanted to make you feel dread but didn't really know how to do that since almost everyone watching is already totally used to Walking Dead zombies. Then things like Kim Dixon's character coming up to the principal who doesn't hear here while the music is fucking BOOMING with a hammer blow of "OMG HE'S TOTALLY A ZOMBIE OH WAIT NO HE'S TOTALLY NOT FOOLED YOU!!!!" Way too many moments of that.

Both of the main characters were too confident and assured. They walked like cops - not sure how else to say that. They didn't walk like teachers or guidance counselors or whatever. They just felt too tough/badass for what the show is trying to tell us they are. The traffic scene was odd. One of the reviewers I read said that seeing choppers and traffic jams like that is typical of an LA day, so the characters reactions seemed too quick to panic and bolt rather than being pissed off and annoyed.

The "send the school home because of a shooting on the Internet" thing also seemed really odd. The whole thing felt like it wanted to tell specific story beats but didn't really know how to pull them off. It also spent way too long before we get into the meat of the people-eating, which would be fine if I liked the characters but I really don't give a shit about them.

I'm fine with it being slow to a point, and they passed that point by a fair bit. Right now, outside of the 5mins with the church and the end part with drug-dealer zombie dude, it felt more like a mediocre family drama and less of something related to the Walking Dead. That is too slow.

That said, I'm fine with giving it more time due to this being an AMC show and in the Walking Dead-verse.


I never thought for a second that it was the same actress and I still don't see how anyone could think that. In a weird way, I actually felt more reminded of Shaun of the Dead when they drove by the park twice

His name was Cal, you racist. :why_so_serious:

I actually liked Johnny Derp as Nick.  He at least made the scenes interesting with his half-Jack-Sparrow/half-Charlie-Chaplin routine.

That nails it.  That was the core problem.  They failed to execute the story they were delivering like most B movies do...

My wife asked me if the teen Lizard King was going to bite it at the beginning when he was wandering around the church.  :why_so_serious:

Wtf was up with that blouse he was wearing.. bugged the fuck out of me.   :awesome_for_real:

WD episode 1 starts with a little blond girl the characters are not supposed to expect to be a zombie that is revealed to be one.  Flash forward 5 years - a blond teenager in a similar role.  

The little girl's IMDB page: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2900452/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t35 (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2900452/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t35)  She is 15 now.  Just a couple years too young for the role...

Yeah and the bit where he had to pull his trousers up as he was running away because they were fashionably half way down his arse was hilarious.

Wife loved it.  Enough for me.

Refuses to get into WD.  I really enjoyed it.  Yeah, it didn't have cannibalism and slashing of throats at beginning, but great setting of stage.

Episode 2 was a little better paced.I liked the starting cast of the flagship better, but I think I might like these characters more.  They're  not being quite as slow to figure things out.  I do like a few of the acting performances, but most of them seem very flat so far.

The fall of society seems to be coming down to a lot of people keeping their mouth shut, either for fear of being thought crazy or wanting to be the first to get at resources and get out of dodge.

For those keeping score at home, after two episodes, the only three speaking role characters to bite it are all black men.  Somewhere, the ghost of T-Dog shed a single tear  :why_so_serious:

There is a Latina with a bite that is just as dead as one of those three men...

You also missed the zombie goth chick that got it in the eye at the end of 2.

This was a better episode than the first but it still seems to be trying to make hay with suspense that it just has not earned. Trying to be topical by having a riot when cops shoot down a walker felt forced. The main characters deciding after 1 zombie encounter and 1 video on Youtube that they need to run for the fucking hills also seems forced. Also, dumb teenager chick is dumb.

Still, it was a lot better than the first and maybe it isn't going to be such a slow burn after all. It's obvious the cops know something more than is being reported. I just found out the first season is only 6 episodes, so I guess they will blow some shit up real soon now.

#1 thing I do not get: Why is everyone 'out sick'? 

Were they all bitten?  If so, how?  Why wasn't there news coverage of all the people going to the hospital with bites?

Fleeing civilization?  OK, but wouldn't it be obvious if a massive number of people were fleeing town?

Are people getting sick without being bitten?  This would be a new wrinkle that wouldn't make much sense. 

This is a big puzzle piece missing for me.  When I saw the previews, I thought we'd see coverage of a few zombies popping up here and there with people having WtF responses - followed by a mass hysteria riot where escalating violence starts to get people killed, turned ... and then the number of undead start to reach enough of a volume that it is hard to be on the streets without being killed.  However, what we're seeing is a police force that knows to do head shots, a small volume of walkers and a mysterious lack of information that does nothing but put people in jeopardy.  It seems like a small amount of effort combined with the information in hand might be enough to contain this thing... of course, that may be the direction they may go.  In LA, perhaps there is a military force that retains control for the first few seasons and people are living in a dictatorship... few zombies, but a lot of evil people.

They keep talking about this mysterious flu, but yeah, for a show that was supposed to show us how the outbreak started, it's doing a really piss poor job of explaining anything. We're about as confused as the people on the show.

... except Pimple face (Tobias?).  I liked that there was at least one character that seemed to have a clue how to handle the new world... until they ruined it in that hallway scene.  I was so frustrated to see him revert to an idiot that seemed to be clueless for no reason other than to give someone else a chance to play 'hero'. (Although he does get props for realizing he is better off far and away from the crazy guidance counselor).

The more I think about it, the more I think they're trying to string together a bunch of scenes that describe the fall of society rather than having a great story that takes place during the fall.  They have characters change their personality to fit the needs of a scene they want to show rather than have the character drive how the scene unfolds.  They don't ask questions that anyone would ask because it would give the characters information the show runners do not want them to have (Alicia: My God, Matt, what happened to your shoulder?  A bite you say?  Who bit you?  They appeared to be very sick and now you're very sick?  That seems related, doesn't it...  I should probably listen to my Mom and Dad when they scream for me to get away from you.)

Travis (pop) is running around like crazy, but wouldn't he have been better off keeping everyone together?  Madison (mom) seems like she should have brought the kids with her to the school.  The son from the prior marriage (Chris?) seems to be off the charts tool just to force people to run to him and put them in downtown LA during the riots.

Right now, I'm really only rooting for one character: Nick.  I'm luke warm at best for everyone else after the second episode, although I was higher on Alicia after the pilot, too... until she turned from prospective Cal student to moron.

The whole riot thing was extremely forced the more I think about it. I'm still not even sure why the people got off the bus. They seemed to have to walk for many many blocks to get to where "the cop shot some homeless guy." Was the bus stopped in traffic? If so, the director really didn't make that clear because all we saw was ambulance drive by, then some guy got on and yelled about cops shooting some dude and the next thing we know, the kid is walking in downtown L.A. like a moron and the scene looks more like a #WalkerLivesMatter protest than whatever the fuck it was supposed to be.

Yeah, the second episode was better than the first. Still, I feel like episodes one and two could have been condensed and combined into one solid episode that didn't drag out as two mediocre episodes.


I don't think the zombie goth chick had any lines, so she wouldn't count towards the "speaking role character" count.


It seemed pretty legit to me. Dude had all his info from online, but when encountered irl he didn't know shit. I laughed about it because it felt like a mockery of wikipedia know-it-alls and internet warriors.

I think the reason everyone is getting the "flu" is because that's the zombie virus that's infecting everyone.  For a lot of people, the initial stage expresses with flu-like symptoms.  You remember how the CDC guy said everyone already carries the virus that turns them into a zombie when they die?  The "flu" is people getting that stage of the virus.  Then it stays with you forever until you die, when you come back as a zombie.  Plenty of viruses in real life will stay with you forever (chicken pox, herpes) so that doesn't sound unreasonable.

Well, that was clichéd, annoying bullshit.

From start to finish.

Fuck sake, make it stop already.  Just give up.

Even before that, nobody takes public transit in LA. That bus should've been empty.

You must be wrong. Speed had Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock save a full busload of people from that Dennis Hopper dude.

This was 2010 or so.  People took the bus in 2010 or so. 

So far, the biggest thing bugging me is the music. If you need a scene suspenseful, then do it. I don't need pounding, dubstep Psycho remixes to tell me something is about to happen. Just fucking do it.

Like many shows at the moment, the sound quality is just Fucking Awful.

But seriously, we only just got the first episode last night and it was hackneyed and clichéd stuff.  Like Jurrasic World, I was waiting, Waiting, WAITING for a character that I gave even a remote fuck about.  TWD was so much better than this.  Sooooo much better.  There was nothing clever or non-tropey about it.  All the characters are dumb.  None of them listen.  Like, at all.  It cut from the addict explaining to the mom saying 'maybe he meant something else' and then it cut to the fact that she was IN THE TRUCK with him while saying this.  It's just....arggggg.

Bad show is going to be bad.  I hope to fuck they pull out something better than this soon or it won't be a concurrent show.

I just don't understand how such a successful franchise is allowed to so quickly go hack. The original series hasn't even gone hack yet. It seems like it would be so easy to do it right a second time.

Druggie son wasn't interesting to you?  He was the only character I liked through two episodes.The staffing behind the camera is substantially different.  They have a lot of familiar names associated, but the real drivers of the show are a different group... a group that is trying something different.  I bet season 1 is mediocre and frustrating and then season 2 makes the proper adjustments and we get more of the quality of the flagship showing up here.  I'll sit through the starting 6 episodes with lowered expectations and wait for season 2 to really judge the series.

Based on the first 2 episodes it's was just a below mediocre family drama with the zombie thing tacked on. None of the characters were really that interesting and since It's basically the same as Walking Dead there's no tension or mystery how the things are going to play when it comes to the zombies. I have no interest in seeing any more episodes of this unless it for some strange reason turns awesome later on which could happen if they add some really good character played by a fitting actor (but until then it's not on my watch list)

This has been sitting in my queue for 2 episodes and the more I read about how mediocre it is the less inclined I am to rush out and watch it ;-) Nothing irritates me more than hack family drama with angsty teenagers and clueless parents.

It is better than mediocre to me.  It is far from the flagship, it wanders, there is some cheese oozing out of it... but it is still worth watching.  It needs to get better, but few shows knock it out of the park from the start.

Nah, sorry, you don't get away with that.  All I'm doing is comparing the premiere of TWD to FTWD as a direct comparison and it's Utter, Utter Shite.  Really, really terribad.

If it was up to me, I'd tape the whole fucking thing and then watch it in one sitting because at least then I could be SURE it was a write off.  But the Wife ain't gonna weather that.  She's like you.

Well, except not mental.  And, I wager, bigger jugs.

You hope.  :why_so_serious:

So are 99% of the premieres out there.  If your benchmark its the pilot of TWD, I agree this is trash.  If your benchmarks are the pilots of the 10% of the dramas out there that became watchable shows... it is an ok start with room to grow.
You subtle attempt to get pictures of my jugs is not going to work.  Not unless you ask real nice.

I'm still betting that episode 7+ (S2E1) will be better than 1 through 6.  They didn't find themselves yet, but the Executive team in place should know where to turn to make improvements.

I enjoyed the second episode more, maybe because one or two of the characters started to become interesting.

I agree it's not clear what's actually happening - something has happened which means the school is totally empty of students (weird zombie flu?) but other things seem to be pretty much unaffected. Also, if we're meant to think that everyone or lots of people went down with a strange flu at the start of the zombie apocalypse then it's odd that nobody in the other show mentioned it. They would have put two and two together, surely. In the other show, the flu just seems to be what you get if you are bit.

And it seems silly that there's one guy saying the truth is all over the internet, as if he's the only person who ever goes online. Presumably this story is set around he time of Season One of The Walking Dead (maybe a few weeks earlier) which I guess is 2010 or so.

But despite all my moans I am actually enjoying it.

The events of Season 1 of FtWD take place soon after Rick's shooting in the WD pilot (while he is unconscious). 

This is what bugs me most.  Max Brooks didn't get away with it by classing his Japanese geeks as subhuman and FtWD won't get away with it by making spotty young kid a pimply fat arse.  The fact of the matter is we live in a fucking digitally connected world and that shit is NOT gonna fly.  It's even worse when they're all gawking at the fucking YOUTUBE video of some zombie getting shot, yet there's not a whole world of people screaming about the shit that's happening.

For Fucks Sake, 'Normal' people know about fucking Gamergate!  You think that some Zombie/Pandemic shit is going to happen and no-one fucking notices ?  Fuck that.

So looking forward to the 2nd episode.   :why_so_serious:  (Not).

One bit to consider... this isn't a tale of 2015. It is a tale about 2010 or so. Facebook had just become revenue positive and the IPO was still 2 years away. Iron Man 2 had just come out.  The Lakers were about to win an NBA title. iPhone 4 wasn't coming out until after the end of the 2010 school year. The topics of the day on f13 included DVD ripping, whether people were going to try Chrome and whether Batman Arkham was just a reskinned Bioshock. The YouTube of 2010 was not the YouTube of today... it was getting big, but was far from the thing it is now... it was half as old as it is now.  They should have had 1 or 2 quick references to remind the audience that the world was a bit different then...

The Walking Dead comic world went to hell in October 2003 according to some Kirkman statements, although he backs off those elsewhere.

You're seriously arguing that 2010 isn't globally connected in much the same way as today ?

My fucking Business internet slammed to a crawl in 2001, oh around Mid-September for some reason.  You can't seriously make that argument.

Nor can the fucking show.

Obviously, yes. Things have changed substantially over the past 5 years. We have not been locked in a massive technological standstill.   Technology changed, who had access to technology changed, and the frequency of use increased. 

I swear, if I said water was wet some of you would claim there was only ice and steam.

In fairness, that's probably because while you would grudgingly accept that some people might like Ice and Steam, they both weren't very likely and, frankly, not to your tastes.  You'd then link an article published about 5 years before Ice and Steam were discovered saying that it's definitely going to be the case that heat and cold will turn water into liquid metal and, you heard it here first true believers, it's going to be Sooooo Coooool.  When confronted with the article after the discovery of Ice and Steam, and how uninteresting they both were, probably about 20 forum pages later, you'd say 'Well, I didn't say it was definite at the time'.

 :uhrr:

Facebook revenue positive? So?

2009 was the height of Facebook joining. I know because after my father died people finally convinced me to join and I was on the tail of the bandwagon.  2010 plenty of people would have been posting about any sort of outbreak.

2006 was the start of Twitter. 2010 wouldn't have been as big a deal as it is now, but it WAS a thing. How on earth could I prove this..
OH right.. internet.
http://mashable.com/2010/12/12/top-twitter-trends-2010/

Yeah, nobody was talking about those in the general populace. It would have only been geeks on the internet so FTWD treating it the same way is TOTALLY PLAUSIBLE.

Ironwood, there is a point where smoking the crack gets unhealthy.  Take care of yourself.  Your characterization of my arguments, while amusing, fails to note that when I use facts to support my case, the *facts* do *support my case* - and the counterarguments usually boil down to cynical unsupported opinion from people that get their undies in a bunch whenever someone points out their opinions are, for lack of a better word, craptastically unsupported by fact.

Anyone want to take a guess at the percentage growth in active Twitter accounts in the last 5 years?

If we accept that the original Walking Dead was set around 2010 and so Fear is set around the same time, Ironwood is 100% correct. 2010 was after social media really started taking off. I work in marketing and we were trying to exploit it years before then. There's no way in 2010 something that big which did have a Youtube video (the cop shooting the zombie dude) wouldn't have sparked a shitload of media talk. Remember the dudes that tried to eat faces because they were hopped up on bath salts? The kind of "hah-hah zombie apocalypse" way the media and everyone on the Internet talked about it?

That's the way people in Fear should have reacted to that shooting because that's pretty much exactly like what happened with the bath salts. Yet we have LA freaking out and closing school? And the main family deciding to hit the desert? And the only one who knows anything about it is the fat spotty Internet nerd? Those are all reasons why the whole thing just doesn't make a lot of sense. Because either it's bad enough and EVERYONE knows through social media (based on the tech they've made pains to show like video on tablets and smartphones) and should be reacting like spotty Jedi outcast or everyone should laugh it off or not know about it at all.

Angora sweater.

Geesh.  Nobody bothers to read anymore, do they?

I still don't know what Gamergate is. I've been tempted to look it up a couple times, but the responses to it indicate I'm better off not knowing.

Finally watched the pilot.

Family drama. 
BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAW DUN DUH DUN BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH DUH DUN DUNNNNN.  Zombie scare.
Family drama. Cue the violins.
Plot hint delivered by nerd. Apparently 2010 is the height of Geocities and AOL, because LOL internet.
Family drama.  Let's introduce some more cliched relationships.
BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAW DUN DUH DUN BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH DUH DUN DUNNNNN.  Zombie scare.
People being dumb.
Family drama.
Junkie hobo shit.  I hope this doesn't take Lexa off The 100.  Can she die early?
Family drama.  Cliched chitter chatter.
OOH. PLOT STUFF. Ohh, they got in the truck.
PLOT VIDEO. Kill shot, bitch.
Magical nerd will save us all.
Family drama.
Wut.
DUN. DUN DUN. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHRRRRRRRRRRRNNNNNNNGGGGG. Dead black guy #1.
M. Night Shamalamadingdong.  Shocking.
Plot development.
*industrial music borrowed from season 2 of True Detective*

Well, that was kind of bad.  It showed some hint of being redeemable.  It would be helpful if it stops being selectively stupid about the environment it's in.

Don't go down that path.  I do not think this site ever had a dedicated Gamergate thread, which is proof that there is a god and he is schild.

My point being in this day and age there are housewives more informed than geeks.  A point Walrus just proved.

Magical Nerd made me laugh tho.  Bravo Rasix.

Watched both episodes last night and this is exactly how I feel. Don't hate it and will definitely continue to turn in, but there's quite a bit of "wait a minute, that doesn't make sense..." as stated above that has me scratching my head and wondering why they didn't try and improve the way everything was presented.

My wife commented "hah hah!  It's LA and everyone's driving 40 year old cars!" which made me wonder if they weren't trying to make it seem a bit older than it is and botched it with the smart phones and youtube videos.  Because really, who drives a 1975 F series truck daily in LA anymore?  In 1998 when I lived in the area it was more common, by 2010 that's not happening much at all anymore.

Come on, there are people who say that the 'truth' about 9/11 is all over the internet, but does that mean everyone believes that jet fuel can't melt steel beams?

But this one, tiny point aside, it's not yet a very good show. It's only on the watch list for now while there's a relative dearth of actual very good shows to watch, but South Park, American Horror Story, Agents of SHIELD and Fargo all start back up again soon, so it may drop below the threshold.

The "truth" is always all over the internet, that doesn't mean people are going believe there is actual zombies until they see one.

Third episode again improved on the last one, but only marginally. The characters still make WAY too many stupid decisions for the sake of plot instead of doing what these characters know they should be doing. In particular Travis stopping Madison from hammering her neighbor's brains out. The military locking down the neighborhood may improve the story next episode but I'm not entirely sure about that.

The very fact that we have so many zombie shows and films only guarantees that there will never be zombies.

It will be something else. Personally I am hoping for some version of the hot, topless demons and devils from the Monster Manual.

I don't see it, this isn't post zombie apocalypse like walking dead.  Not killing everyone is still a reasonable choice, specially when they don't currently pose a threat.

Agreeing with Threash - these people don't have all the knowledge, yet.  They know that people are not 'dying' when they should, and that people are getting sick and coming back as these brainless deadish things - but they had no reason to know that the ones that have not been blown to hell are beyond saving. 

I'm not sure why the neighbor was even dead - I didn't see a bite.  She had no reason to commit suicide... did she happen to die of natural causes?  Do some percentage of people that get airborne infected get sick and just die? 

FYI - I think there was a crossover moment last night, but not with the flagship show.  There is an upcoming independent story that is going to be released online with a zombie outbreak on a plane.  I'm betting that look up into the sky at the plan that veered will turn out to be a look at the plane features on the online story.  Apparently, at least one of the characters from the plane show will make their way to Fear the Walking Dead next year (not sure if it will be someone on the plane or someone on the ground, though....) http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/walking-dead-plane-webseries-fear-the-walking-dead-crossover-1201580779/ (http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/walking-dead-plane-webseries-fear-the-walking-dead-crossover-1201580779/)

I'm beginning to think that LA is going to be a very different setting in the long run - that there may be more people alive and more of a government that survives longer than there was out East.  I'm wondering if the local West Coast troops manage to catch on fast enough to keep the zombie population low(ish) creating a story that is half Jericho and half Walking Dead?  In Walking Dead, the Walking Dead are the survivors.  In Fear the Walking Dead, is it suggesting that we should be fearing the survivors?

They haven't shown anyone get bit and then die and turn yet, so I am in agreement with you on this one. They could have at least left a note or a sign or something to warn their neighbor though. 


The pills on the table imply she was sick or that she took them and overdosed. She was in a bathrobe/nightgown, so probably sick and died in bed. 


This sounds cool. I liked the webisodes, so it would be neat to see some more of those.


I think that this series will be more urban than the regular walking dead series. California has a lot of urban environment to play in and once you leave the beaches, it's desert unless you go north. I think this series should explore more of what would happen to city folk in their cities. And how long would they last before the zombies win.

There were pills on my table this morning, too.... awfully (in)convenient timing for an overdose/natural death. 

The biggest question I've had in Walking Dead is: Why so many zombies?  Wouldn't the zombies have eaten away most of the people to the point where they would not be mobile as zombies?  If they were bitten and then went off and were sick, wouldn't they have been locked up in the rooms where they died?  Shouldn't that minimize the number of roamers? 

I'd hoped this show would have a good explanation (even if just implied) why we had so many zombies running around, but we didn't get it yet.  I don't expect we will, either.

I hope this show doesn't forget that the biggest issue once society collapses in southern California won't be zombies, it will be trying to find fresh water.

That and all of the protestors calling for zombie rights...

Well these folks were planning on heading into the desert, so water should be an issue even then.

Southern California is a desert.  But to your point, that's assuming the military even lets them leave.  They could be setting up a quarantine of the whole area.

I think it's pretty obvious the next episode or two will be the military quarantining the main characters in the neighborhood.

If only the police and military acted this fast in real life.   :awesome_for_real:  Considering we as viewers know this is going on everywhere, it's pretty surprising how much of a cop and military presence has popped up so quick.

In general, one thing that keeps me from really enjoying zombie stuff that *isn't* explicitly magic is that it doesn't make any fucking sense, and that I assume even in the most shell-shocked apocalyptic group there would eventually be someone who says, "Look, let's try to come at this methodically and figure this out". At which point the whole thing collapses into a pile of goo. Walking Dead's zombies are radically anti-entropy. They keep moving and wanting to eat even though they also don't have to eat in order to expend energy. Their cells don't seem to require bodily integrity to operate but they do sort of seem to need a brain despite not really seeming to need one, exactly. Things "die" after they "die" if they receive sufficient damage, but that doesn't make any sense at all in the context of some of the zombies seen where they keep trying to do stuff if they are almost entirely without body integrity if they have a brain. Etcetera. I can suspend disbelief in a lot of situations--gods lifting hammers, Iron Men flying across the sky, giants hammering on city walls, you name it, but there's something about non-magic zombies that is just...like, what? for me, especially if everything else is standard "how will we survive after the end of the world?" At that point I just say, "end the world already and forget the zombies, that's already interesting enough".

The very first episode of the original series Morgan explains to Rick a sickness/fever that goes around & kills people but then they come back (his wife). No need to get bitten to turn, people get sick, die, come back, eat & spread it around. We've also seen plenty of zombies trapped inside houses too...

I'll have to go back and rewatch the pilot of the flagship, but my recollection is that Morgan had no idea about people coming back if they were not bit - and that any reference he made to sickness was in the context of bites.  I don't recall there was any hint that an airborn illness was killing people at the time of the outbreak.

As for needing magic to explain it: When Kirkman sold the idea to the comics folks, his bible explained that the outbreak was the brainchild of aliens.... that is close to magic.

I... what? Seriously?

Dear God, I really hope they don't ever ever ever show that in the TV series.

It's how I would do it. Hightech smallpox blankets.

To be clear: Kirkman had the ides for the comic, but nobody was biting.  He was apparently in the middle of the pitch to Valentino when he saw the eyes glazing over and started to BS the alien invasion thing to try to get some interest: http://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/scifi/walking-deads-robert-kirkman-aliens-figured-comics-origins-aliens.html (http://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/scifi/walking-deads-robert-kirkman-aliens-figured-comics-origins-aliens.html)  He says the alien thing was all BS. 

Kirkman wouldn't be the first to do this even if he went through with it.  The very first modern zombie film, from which most current zombies are derived, essentially did the same thing.  In Night of the Living Dead the source of the zombie plague is attributed to radiation from an exploded probe returning from Venus which could easily be caused by aliens, though Romero never gave a definitive answer, and he went on to make four sequels.  Night of the Creeps, Home Delivery (by Stephen King), The Screwfly Solution, and a number of other movies/books have played with the idea.  I don't think it's a bad one.  Certainly better than magic, though I guess that's a low bar.

I think given how well the TV series has gone (the original that is, not this pale imitation), adding an element of alien invasion would feel all too much like Falling Skies. And that show is fucking awful.

Is this series ignoring the revelation in the original that dying from any cause other than head trauma results in zombification?

No, it isn't ignoring that.

In fact, some characters seem to have already figured out that anyone dying is coming back, months earlier than characters on the flagship figured it out.  They saw multiple people die - unbitten - and come back.  In fact, it may be that the knowledge gap on this show is that bites kill.  Someone on this show may get bit and might think it no worse than a dog bite...

We have zombie ants in nature.  I look at that and then I don't wonder at all at a tv show rationalisation. Seriously, people.

Then there is this (http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/the-most-horrifying-parasite-cymothoa-exigua/) thing, which makes run of the mill zombies positively pleasant.

They could add an element of Evil Clowns from Dimension X and it would still be better than Falling Skies.

I like this series just fine, it scratches my zombie itch while waiting for the flagship's return. 

And some of you need to adjust the tilt on your berets.  This is a tv series about the zombie apocalypse.  There are going to be logical holes all over the place.  The flagship series has tons of them already.

Yeah, but those zombie ants aren't actually dead. All the different cordyceps just use chemicals to trigger basic evolutionary traits before they kill the host. And then they're just dead and sit there. Without magic or breathing and circulation zombies are absolutely impossible.

Also, cordyceps are being researched to develop a wide array of different medicines for humans.

Now you're just nitpicking my point about the pointlessness of nitpicking.

You know where that ends, right ?

I have more of a problem with the wildly inconsistent characterizations than I do the logical plot holes inherent in zombie fiction.

My glorious ascension as a being of pure energy to the throne made from the skulls of my enemies.

Seriously, is it the Skull Throne?

Alas no.  If only it was.  I could ascend solely by discussing The Dark Tower.

Did anyone else notice that there were no zombies in the entire last episode? It's kind of hard to Fear them if they aren't even in the episode.

"Walking Dead" has never meant the zombies, it refers to the survivors.

Guyz...what if Zombies took over the earth but it turned out the real evil threat...

...

...

WAS MAN!

Quell surprise!

Almost as cheesy and cliched at this point as one character turning to another and saying "I guess you could say those of us left really are...the Walking Dead" then looking straight into the camera.

It's fine to say that the real enemy is man but without zombies nobody would care about these series, at all.

Highlight of episode was watching Johnny Depp's stunt double getting hauled off. Otherwise, really weak episode.

I actually thought it was the strongest episode this season. The main characters being in a zombie free safe zone controlled by the military wasn't necessarily a fresh take on the genre but at least it was an interesting one. There's still a bit too much of assuming we know or like these characters without giving us a reason to, but I think the show is on the uptick. The dramatic beats were actually good, especially the scene with Kim Dixon beating the shit out of Teen Lizard King, and the inevitable scene at the end.

The big problem I have is that we were promised a show about how people dealt with the collapse of society as the zombie apocalypse started, then we get this episode where we fast forward nine days Rick Grimes style past the part I wanted to see.

The other problem is I actively dislike every single character and want them all to die.  If I was supposed to feel bad about Lizard Prince getting dragged away by the 'evil' military, then it backfired because it made me much more sympathetic to the military than the dumbass family.  The daughter is about the only one acting anything like a real person so I can sort of tolerate her.  El Salvador Barber I would like more if he wasn't such an obvious 'The Military Is Bad' mouthpiece.  I'm actively rooting for the death of the rest of that shitty family, which is not exactly a ringing enforcement for a show.

Both of these.

I am angry that they skipped 9 days after making such a big deal of 'telling the story of the fall'.

I also don't care about anyone on the show right now.  If they all died, I'd be fine with it.  Instead, we'll get a couple "shocking deaths" and then forget everything that took place by the time the next season comes around.

I also am a bit perturbed that the military doesn't seem to be making any sense.  Why did they go out of their way to pop some people living outside the zone while letting the people in the zone continue on?  Are they in on what caused the plague and are trying to further some melodrama agenda?  I see no benefit to going out and killing someone a mile outside the zone...

If you think that plan was dumb, you should have seen the eight others that didn't make the cut.

Still better than the ending of Lost.

And a better love story than Twilight.

I sort of like this show.  I do, however, totally agree with the characters making all sorts of bad and stupid decisions.  To the point, at times, that I end up shouting at the TV.

Let's not watch a movie together.

If they weren't go be willing to give the show the budget necessary to show the actual collapse of civilization and a realistic threat to trained soldiers they really shouldn't have bothered.  I didn't sign up for "nine days later" and "stay in the car Carl... err Travis".  Zombies are slow, unintelligent and have no survival instinct or ranged attacks, the only way they are a threat to trained soldiers is because there are MILLIONS of them and they never tire or stop coming. There was no reason for those soldiers to have been up 50 hours straight, those streets were fucking deserted, you could have laid down for a nap anywhere you wanted.  I like Ruben Blades character and the new black guy that got introduced this last episode, but this is not the story i signed up for.

I know this isn't a political thread, but honestly anyone else getting a serious republican "anti government" paranoia vibe out of this one?  The actions of the government and why the soldiers are acting like they are make absolutely no sense to me.  Can't wait to see how they explain this one exactly.

Edit:

It might have been more interesting to have had a perspective from the side of the soldiers in fear instead of the junky, the counselor, and the teacher.  it feels like a missed opportunity.

This. I do think the last two episodes have been slightly better than the ones that came before it, but there's so much wrong with the way they've told this story it's not even funny. There's no context for some things that probably should be important (Travis's problem with guns, the two idiot kids smashing the rich people's house - where did that even take place, the military's evacuation after days of martial law). These characters are mostly way too stupid to have survived as long as they have.

It looks to me like they want the actions of the soldiers to be a mystery. Cobalt was intended to be a surprise, and it is unclear where they're falling back, and who is currently giving orders. We're still deep into the time Rick was unconcious according to the showrunners... so it is supposed to be unclear how much of a government exists.

It isn't really coming through well, but that seems to be the intent.

...and the government actions are intending to show us what it'd be like if the US government treated US citizens like they treat the citizens of the lands where we have military activity going on... I'll let those with actual military experience discuss whether that is realistic.

I definitely got a Republican vibe out of the whole torture is awesome and totally saves the day part.

I get less of a political vibe out of it and more of a bad, cliched writing vibe.

Didn't they roundup people, put them in a superdome and leave them to die ?

No politics there.    :oh_i_see:

That's what the writers told us they did in exposition, but they thought it would be a better idea to just skip over the 9 most interesting days instead of showing us stuff like that.  That way we could see more junkie kid stealing morphine and shit instead.

Budget.  Zombie apocalipse expensive, sitting in a car listening to zombie apocalipse through the radio cheap.

You chaps are making me glad I don't get this shitshow over here.

It's not as terrible as we make it sound, it just really really isn't what we were promised.

I like it it, but it might be because I also watched a few of the new network show debuts and FtWD is freaking Citizen Kane comparatively.

It is not the flagship, but it is as good as most higher quality network stuff.

They were saving the entire budget for the season finale.  Wait.

The finale was solid. The season got better as it progressed.

Hasn't released here yet - is it better than S2? Aka worth my bandwidth to watch?

Yes, it is far better than season 2.  It would be extremely hard not to be.

I thought the finale was just mediocre at best. It kind of shambled from stupid to predictable back to stupid then finally on to completely and utterly predictable as well as stupid to end.

Travis being a giant pussy was just irritating, especially when you knew EXACTLY what would happen because of him. The horde? That made a little sense until you stop and think about how you're leading a horde into the same compound you're trying to get people out of simply as a distraction? There's better ways to do that. Also, soldiers with no fire discipline just indiscriminately blasting at zombies at point blank range through a fence when they should know by now that it takes headshots and anything else is a waste of bullets.

In short, things happened because the writers said instead of because that's how it should have happened.

HaemishM and jgsugden in 100% agreement.  How many signs of the apocalypse does that equate?

Our "heroes" pretty much murdered everyone in that compound.  All the military, all the prisoners, all the wounded...

You'd figure that they'd headshot the zombies and they'd start to pile up and create a wall that blocked the zombies and caused them to redirect around the compound....

I am intrigued by the ship idea.  When I first read Walking Dead my first thought was to head to the sea and find a boat.  I'm curious to see where it goes...

I thought the finale was garbage as was most of the series.  I'm still sort of interested to see where it goes, but I don't particularly like any of the characters and have actually been rooting for Travis to get his face eaten off.  I spend most of the episodes pointing out all the stuff that doesn't make any sense and all the dumb shit the actors are doing.

Yeah, I'm with everyone else on a few main points

-mostly shitty characters making dumb decisions because the plot says they should for the sake of the plot
-the main characters killing an entire base of what seemed to be Stormtroopers (based on their lack of accuracy), this entire concept was pretty fucking dumb. I get it was a last resort to save some people, but the Pied Piper of zombies sounds cooler than it actually is.
-predictable outcomes (like letting the soldier go and its results)
-falling way short on showing the downfall of society. It still felt like we were waking up with Rick due to how many days were skipped when we went from a minor infection to a full blown lockdown on a small neighborhood with the rest of LA being mostly cleared. WTF. And with LA being cleared to that extent (based on what we saw when they were driving to Strand's) then why are the military pulling back? They had almost an entire city pretty well cleared.

However, I like Daniel, Strand, and Madison. I'd actually be happier if any one of these three became the leader instead of Travis as any one of them seem to be more interesting and make better decisions.

My biggest gripe was releasing the herd of walkers on, not just the military, but basically any survivors in the area.  All to save 2-3 people.  Until they did that the area had been pretty clear of walkers. 

One reason for the miltary to pull out: to consolidate with other troops in one spot: Edwards Air Force Base. It isn't about LA, it was about what was going on elsewhere, or that was how I took it. That was one of the few things I didn't have complaints about...

Watched this all the other day...

This was my first thought when I saw the beginning.  If you want to sneak and get in to the complex, I would think there's better things to do than lead a horde of 2000+ zombies in.  And the machine gun firing into the crowd was just stupid.  Head shots, the soldiers should know this and it should be without question.  The breakdown of military order and soldiers bailing\running away?  Totally agree, once soldiers lose their CO's things can go to hell quickly.  I must say that if the 2 guys in the guard tower could let a group THAT big get THAT close to them without seeing it, then whoever laid the place out was a complete fucking moron.  But then considering that the soldiers have been said to be executing everyone they come across and failing at minor crowd control in buildings to end up with high casualties against slow and predictable walker movements, it's not like whoever is writing this show thinks anyone on it should have much of a brain.

And ultimately I think this pisses me off about the show more than anything else.  We're going to totally save 2 people we know and kill several dozen innocents to do it.  I know it's the end of the world, apocalypse and all that, and yeah we ARE LA residents, but some human decency goes a long way here.  Same with their neighbors.  The whole "fuck 'em, they didn't help us" attitude and leaving the gate open so a horde will wander in and kill everyone?  Kind of a shitty attitude and just shows these people are shits not worthy of caring about.  As I said, I get that it's the end of the world and "every man for himself" is pretty much how the world will be, but dropping a line or hint to people and not going out of our way to flat out murder people whose only crime is being there at the time would go considerably further towards making the characters appear to be somewhat decent human beings.  In the original series very rarely does anyone get blasted or wasted by Rick and co. solely for their stuff or without them at least having done something to justify it (yeah, it has happened but it isn't a regular occurrence).  It makes me wish all the people in this show would get eaten - except for our new black guy, he entertains me and hasn't done anything to piss me off yet.

In Iraq our troops used an estimated 250,000-300,000 rounds of ammo for every insurgent killed.  Not saying our soldiers have the aim of storm troopers, but this is the B-team (National Guard) and the way they're trained to fight seems a bit different than just running turkey shoots against fellow Americans.

Still it's dumb and implausible, but it is a zombie show after all.

The decision to just wipe out the camp seemed really excessive though.  That's a season four move.

Thats why I ultimately don't like this show. There is only one person I can stand, and thats the Black Guy. Everybody else has given me enough reason to dislike them for being at least selfish pricks. Most of them would put Shane to Shame as antagonists for a non-sociopathic main cast.

I think if your main cast can be described as "Gabriel and Shane or worse" you have serious problems. Up until the last minute I really thought they would kill off most of the cast and replace them with a new group in the second season. These assholes started at a point that took some the mothership cast 4 seasons of hardships, betrayals and loved ones dying to reach. And most of those are still more decent human beings after all that.

What is the message in this series? Humans suck, go team Zombie?

I've always been a team zombie guy. Watching everyone die is the reason I watch anything with zombies in it at all.

Seconded. Although I do root for Rick, Michonne, and Daryl. Mostly for a badass zombie kill squad.

This is back. It's still crap.

There are no likable characters.  I don't see any of these people being a fan fave.  The show could be improved 100% by just dumping the kids.  Although at least Nick has grown on me, or maybe it's just he's the least shitty of the teenagers.

I actually think Nick is the only likable character. We don't know enough about Strand to know if he's likable or not. The rest are mostly one note and hotty daughter is an idiot for talking on the radio. The boat being the staging vehicle for this season seems like it could be an interesting departure but it seems like we are going to skip the first 2 seasons of Walking Dead where the zombies are the source of conflict and just jump straight into "other survivors are the real horrors" portion of the story trope. If so, I look forward to* "The Admiral" and his flotilla of murderous assholes.

* I really don't look forward to this at all.

I like Nick and Strand. The daughter has been hit and miss. I'm fine with the rest being zombie chow sooner rather than later.

Anyone that uses Bowie to lure people into a trap needs to die in a boat fire.

Strand's only likeable in comparison to the rest of the characters, he's really a colossal dick. And Nick seems to have transformed from pathetic junkie to fearless heroic overnight with no real development process between the two tropes.

Just like TWD, this shows writers seem to have a very low opinion of humans. They're either huge morons or they're scheming psychopaths.

So spot on then?

Only thing keeping me watching is the hope that one of the teenagers gets horribly killed.

That seems to be pretty accurate representation of humans. People can barely be civil to each other when laws and social restraints are in place. Remove those and you get to see the truth and that is people in general are utterly terrible to those not close to them.

While that is certainly true, it gets to be a really, really boring fucking basis for a show. Especially when the writers take great pains to make you give a shit about certain characters and then punk you with "SUPRISE COCKFAGS! PEOPLE ARE SHIT!"

If "People are shit" is going to be the main story device for this season, I'm going to be checking out sooner rather than later.

Well, it is L.A., where the residents are the horrors before any apocolypse :why_so_serious: For real though, keep in mind it has been a few weeks so the main cast is behind in the game compared to others since they were in an isolated camp.


Overall, I'm okay with FTWD so far even if they did do a shit job of showing the collapse of society when they skipped a few weeks in S1. I like Strand and Nick. Alisha is hot enough I don't care, and her acting dumb makes sense at this point since the crew in general is still going through growing pains of adapting to the new world. Madison and Travis aren't total shit. Daniel should get more interesting as they look into his backstory, which I'm guessing we'll see soon as he kicks some ass on the seas. Ofelia seems forgettable at this point, which is okay since not all can be in the foreground just yet. The one character who is just shitty is Chris, before and after his mom died. He has been nothing but a whiny bitch making nothing but bad and unreasonable decisions.

You DO NOT cut the person that seems to have the biggest clue about what the fuck is going on loose.

I get the aversion to strangers, but I think they're going a bit overboard on "trust absolutely no one ever" here...

Their characterizations are all over the map, sometimes from episode to episode. They go from knowing what they should be doing about zombies to doing absolutely brain dead stupid shit like Travis's kid did this last episode and just wandering off on his own. The situations in this season have improved slightly but I just want to stab at least half the cast at least once every episode.

This needs to be the Strand, Nick and Alex show. With maybe Alicia in tow because I loved her in the 100.

Wife & I abandoned this show after episode 1. Too much other stuff on that's so, so much better, and isn't just predicated on 'people are horrible and stupid'.

Welp, I tried. I really really tried. I managed to make it all the way through the season until the finale. 15 minutes in, I just had had enough. We get what looks like a compressed version of the Farm with some of the exact same events but for even more batshit stupid reasons, along with Dougray Scott in a very strange minor role. I don't understand this show. Every single opportunity they had to do interesting things with either the concept or the characters they utterly fucked up. The characters who are actually likable either get killed or are shit on by the rest of the cast, and the characters who should be relatable who are played by good actors (specifically Travis and Madison) are just unlikable dickbags.

Fuck this show.

Agreed.  There were a few places where it had real potential to be something and ended up being nothing or falling victim to "people gonna be dumb for plot reasons" logic.  I really was scratching my head at the last episode.  Not sure I'm going to bother with it anymore.

I don't care about any of the cast anymore.  I have no idea where they are trying to even go with the show here.  At least there always seemed to be something more on The Walking Dead besides pure survival.

The amazing thing to me: A lot of us would hold on just because it takes place in the WD universe and we'd want to be completionists ... but they go well out of their way to say this show is intended to never have any impact on the flagship show.