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Fear the Walking Dead - Season One - Sundays on AMC

woolley

Member
So, a few thoughts.

1. That 9 day time jump pissed me the hell off. Isn't the entire premise of the show about detailing how society fell, and they just skipped the 9 days in which the urban areas were taken over by the military and where they presumably murdered countless lives and quarantined and experimented on myriad others? Again, if the entire premise of the show is being gloss over what reason is there to watch or how is it any different than Walking Dead 2.0, how does this show aim to differentiate itself from the original if they're just going to go into survival horror tropefest so soon?

2. Not likely but wouldn't it be hilarious if a character that got killed in TWD came back as a completely different character in FTWD.?
Not really, the premise of the sow is how a group of everyday people react to the world as they know it ending. They were in the protection of the military in a baracked area, they wouldn't low or see most of what's going on in the rest of the world or even the city.
 

LosDaddie

Banned
Great episode. I'm still in for the whole season. I enjoyed how it's obvious the military is just straight up lying to the people. I can enjoy the slow episodes because they are building towards something more.

I can't wait for next week. Looks to finally be some action.
 

cw_sasuke

If all DLC came tied to $13 figurines, I'd consider all DLC to be free
Decent episode. Nice ending. Definitely better than 90% of TWD at this point.
I keep seeing this post and thought people were joking first. Regular TWD is way better than Fear the Walking Dead.... Even in it worst times you always have a couple of characters you care about on TWD - but with Fear they are all just idiots.

Then again we are still early and this might chase at the end of this season.. But so far the only person I like on the show were the fat kid in the school who knew what was going on and cartel grandpa. Ever one else is just horrible and no one acts human.


But I kinda liked were they were going the last episode.... I really hope Travis stops being such a tool.
 

someday

Banned
Not really, the premise of the sow is how a group of everyday people react to the world as they know it ending. They were in the protection of the military in a baracked area, they wouldn't low or see most of what's going on in the rest of the world or even the city.
That is certainly what it turned into, but I was among those who was more interested in the city itself breaking down, not Madison, Travis, and family dealing with it behind a fence after a 9 day time-skip. They could have used Nick as the window to the outside and had him trapped in another drug den, trying to make his way to his family or something. Anything that would have shown us more of the actual collapse and people actually dealing with the infected up close while they figure out what's going on.

I've stated earlier that I still have some hope that they will include some of this in the next couple of episodes though.
 

Crud

Banned
People are thirsty for the destruction and decay. I enjoy how the show handles the paranoia and not just giving us the crazyness all at once. We will see the broken city and regular people struggling still. There is plenty of time for it to be shown.
 

cw_sasuke

If all DLC came tied to $13 figurines, I'd consider all DLC to be free
People are thirsty for the destruction and decay. I enjoy how the show handles the paranoia and not just giving us the crazyness all at once. We will see the broken city and regular people struggling still. There is plenty of time for it to be shown.
It's not about the craziness for me - but if you can't really relate to the characters and there actions it gets bad real quick.

It can only get better though... That's while I'll finish this season.
 
I'm still giving this through the end of the season to see if I really like it, but there are a few things that have been extremely disappointing. The characters, largely, and some of the facepalm-tier stupid directing calls.

After this last episode I'm massively bummed that we're not going to see the actual decay of society, where I had thought that was one of the advertising points of this series. We went from the first night of things starting to go to hell on a broader scale to the military swooping in inexplicably, then jumped ahead 9 days? What? How did the city fall? How many people were truly evacuated versus "evacuated"? Was everyone in a panic or did the military swoop in and kill everyone before the public had a chance to really go nuts?

Presently I can't get through how the government knew this was a biohazard situation and was so extremely well organized for that before things really got out of hand. We know from TWD that the feds have no idea what's going on (remember the CDC arc?) but this time they do and had massive contingencies in place already? How is that possible? Why didn't Atlanta have any of these plans? It's entirely abandoned with zero military presence and no containment only a few days after things started. There also weren't any signs of premeditated slaughter like in LA.
 

cacildo

Member
as if TWD was known for it's likeable characters ;)

Well... people used to like em, at least... remember when we all (we all = me and my wife) rooted for Daryl and Carol to be a couple?

I think most people like Michone a lot. Even in later seasons...

The thing about "not being able to relate to the characters" though ... it's problematic because we look at it with the eyes of someone who's used to zombies in popular culture, who know the concept of a zombie.

They see sick people ... you don't just shoot / kill someone who's quite possibly simply tripping on some really weird drug that doesn't make him feel pain. Neither would you tell your daughter that you killed a guy like that, i suppose.

It's hard to judge whether or not the problems are the unrelateable characters themselves or the unrelatable world, really.

That is true.

But it also only goes so far. In the first days ok, it may be hard to talk about it. But when something this big happens i expect the family to get together and go "Ok people what do we know so far?" "How do we survive this?"

Of course we as audience already know everything they dont, but they need to bring fresh points of view and ideas so the show can be interesting.

abedzari3.jpg


btw, here´s the Abed picture i promised earlier. Im impressed that this isnt more popular on the internet. To me it describes perfectly the problem with The Walking Dead and Fear (i mean, if you change "scary" for "interesting")
 

Volimar

Member
Better writing would have been for her to grab it after the army guys went by and hid it from Travis "I'm not a fan of guns" Whatshislastname.
 
So, a few thoughts.

1. That 9 day time jump pissed me the hell off. Isn't the entire premise of the show about detailing how society fell, and they just skipped the 9 days in which the urban areas were taken over by the military and where they presumably murdered countless lives and quarantined and experimented on myriad others? Again, if the entire premise of the show is being gloss over what reason is there to watch or how is it any different than Walking Dead 2.0, how does this show aim to differentiate itself from the original if they're just going to go into survival horror tropefest so soon?

2. Not likely but wouldn't it be hilarious if a character that got killed in TWD came back as a completely different character in FTWD.?
when was there a 9 day jump? didn't catch that.
 

Apoc29

Member
The main problem is that the characters don't have any defining characteristics:

Son - is a drug addict, ok that's something
Daughter - is supposedly smart because she got accepted into college, but what has she done that was actually smart?
Dad - is a dad
Mom - is a mom

At least in TWD you could tell what everyone's role was in a short amount of time; here it's been 4 episodes and no one has really stood out and made me say, "yes, this is the person I want to keep an eye on."
 
You're trying to rationalize this as someone who's seen five seasons of Rick and co. coming to terms with what's happening. The characters in FTWD still believe things will get back to normal, because it's only been about a week or so since the outbreak.

this is fair, but i suppose it (5 seasons of TWD) only serves to shine an even brighter light on the flawed concept of "zombie outbreak in a world where nobody has heard of zombies before". it just isn't interesting anymore. everyone feels like a paper-thin caricature of an archetype because anyone who made believable decisions would be too smart to trust anyone in this community. they had to make Ruben Blades' character kind of a stubborn asshole to make up for the fact that he was ahead of the curve on what was happening/is going to happen. they couldn't even sustain Tobias past episode 2 because he'd remove any reason for these dorks to be in real danger if they listened to him.
 

Crud

Banned
this is fair, but i suppose it (5 seasons of TWD) only serves to shine an even brighter light on the flawed concept of "zombie outbreak in a world where nobody has heard of zombies before". it just isn't interesting anymore. everyone feels like a paper-thin caricature of an archetype because anyone who made believable decisions would be too smart to trust anyone in this community. they had to make Ruben Blades' character kind of a stubborn asshole to make up for the fact that he was ahead of the curve on what was happening/is going to happen. they couldn't even sustain Tobias past episode 2 because he'd remove any reason for these dorks to be in real danger if they listened to him.

Sorry everyone isn't a top notch zombie killing badass all knowing walker fucking Jesus. This show is probably not your thing, just wait until the real mediocrity returns on 10/11.
 
The main problem is that the characters don't have any defining characteristics:

Son - is a drug addict, ok that's something
Daughter - is supposedly smart because she got accepted into college, but what has she done that was actually smart?
Dad - is a dad
Mom - is a mom

At least in TWD you could tell what everyone's role was in a short amount of time; here it's been 4 episodes and no one has really stood out and made me say, "yes, this is the person I want to keep an eye on."

Barber.
 
Despite disliking pretty much everyone, I'm still sort of interested in it. The slow pace is actually kind of nice when I keep expecting people to go zombie at any second. Still a bit eh. At least the ending of the episode was pretty good.


Why is Nick still wearing those old-man clothes?

I said the same thing aloud when I watched it last night. -_-;


this show is completely rife with unlikable, unintelligent, and belligerent people. travis is a shit father and a total goon. how is someone who is supposed to be a teacher of teenaged children so completely close-minded and obstinate about literally anything people try to tell him, especially his teenage son?

i hope they all die and we start over next season. couldn't have cared less about what happened in the last 10 minutes. these people are dense and don't deserve to be protected by these military goons. we literally see the mother make a completely bone-headed move to compromise the security of their situation because she's apparently still unable to grasp whats going on more than a week later. congratulations you hid under a car and didn't have the presence of mind to grab the gun that the show kept framing for reasons i don't understand.

hey wind chimes. this is a visual metaphor for the relative peace of surburban life that was "shattered" in the zombie riots that we didn't really show you very much of and was apparently wrapped up in about a day.

Yeah. This is what's killing it for me. I find everyone except the barber (and his wife since she seems wise to things as well) incredibly frustrating. Madison has glimpses of survivor-esque instincts, then goes and cuts a freaking hole in the fence to sneak out. Zero thought to the overall safety of everyone, and I can't even fathom why she would be interested in Daniel's flashing light house all of a sudden when she was so intent on playing house just minutes earlier. And her earlier 'don't tell Alicia' shit drove me up the wall. Why would you keep such crucial info from your daughter? As if the burning city and electricity going out wouldn't clue her in. People that hoard info get others killed. She's bloody lucky Nick produced a seizure in that earlier episode to keep her from running out. And Travis...argh. I'm with you on your assessment.
 

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
And her earlier 'don't tell Alicia' shit drove me up the wall. Why would you keep such crucial info from your daughter? As if the burning city and electricity going out wouldn't clue her in.
I'm not sure why people don't get this. Her daughters boyfriend is dying and will become a walking corpse. She tells the daughter the boyfriend is going to die, the daughter will rush to his side without any thought, she almost did anyway with the city in ruin. So she keeps it from her until its too late for the daughter to do anything.
 

Zoe

Member
The main problem is that the characters don't have any defining characteristics:

Son - is a drug addict, ok that's something
Daughter - is supposedly smart because she got accepted into college, but what has she done that was actually smart?
Dad - is a dad
Mom - is a mom

She hinted that addiction and/or mental issues run in her family and that it supposedly skipped her... but then we saw her beating her son in the latest episode. Given his reaction, I wouldn't be surprised if she beat him regularly when he was younger.

(surprised I haven't seen anyone else mention that, guess the hate is too strong)
 
I'm not sure why people don't get this. Her daughters boyfriend is dying and will become a walking corpse. She tells the daughter the boyfriend is going to die, the daughter will rush to his side without any thought, she almost did anyway with the city in ruin. So she keeps it from her until its too late for the daughter to do anything.

Right? I just wanted to throttle her. It made no sense at all. It's the kind of cheap device used in horror films so that people keep doing stupid shit and dying. It flies in the face of logic.
 

jb1234

Member
She hinted that addiction and/or mental issues run in her family and that it supposedly skipped her... but then we saw her beating her son in the latest episode. Given his reaction, I wouldn't be surprised if she beat him regularly when he was younger.

(surprised I haven't seen anyone else mention that, guess the hate is too strong)

If the show cut out all the bullshit family melodrama and just focused on the world (and city) falling to pieces, it would be a hundred times better. Giving Madison a child beater past would be enough to for me to stop watching.
 
Anyone who made believable decisions would be too smart to trust anyone in this community.

To be fair, no one is really written that way in the series. It's repeatedly shown that the L.A. residents are either too vain or ignorant to realize that there's an outbreak happening in front of them. Alicia and her friends make fun of the viral video in the pilot. The rioters are initially complaining about police brutality against the homeless (which would be all well and good in normal society, but just exasperates the situation here). The rioters also ignore a man having his face chomped on by a walker, and Chris is the only one to notice. Travis and his neighbour even put their garbage out to the curb, despite the former knowing that the people across the street got eaten by a walker. It's also repeatedly suggested that there's a government conspiracy taking place, and information is being kept away from the public as much as possible.

The only one who really understands what's going on is Daniel, who states that he saw a situation like this (civil war/brutality) before and is reacting accordingly

they couldn't even sustain Tobias past episode 2 because he'd remove any reason for these dorks to be in real danger if they listened to him.

Yeah, but Tobias wasn't any more capable than these characters. Despite the fact that he had apparently researched what was happening and knew what to do, the weapon he wanted was pitifully, embarrassingly small, and instead of trying to stab Artie in the head, he stabbed him in the chest to no effect (which would have resulted in his death if Madison hadn't eventually intervened).

He's no more capable than Travis is.

so are they trying to imply that she beat nick when he was younger? and the abuse/neglect was a contributing factor to him turning to hard drugs?

In the pilot episode (the scene when she and Travis are looking through the church), she implies that drug use is something that runs in the family. I wouldn't be surprised if she was a user/drinker herself, and coupled with the dad's disappearance, it drove Nick to start using as well.
 
There's been hints that she has a violent past, yes. She gets all stone-faced (and now drinky) when she encountered with these violent/horrible situations.

It's probably also intentional that she is the only one in the family that has fought back against the zombies. The dad has been in "they're just sick! I hate guns!" mode, and the kids have been varying degrees of useless morons.
 
There's been hints that she has a violent past, yes. She gets all stone-faced (and now drinky) when she encountered with these violent/horrible situations.

It's probably also intentional that she is the only one in the family that has fought back against the zombies. The dad has been in "they're just sick! I hate guns!" mode, and the kids have been varying degrees of useless morons.

To be fair, Nick was the first one who fought back. After he shot his dealer and they went back, he hopped in that truck and mowed that zombie down in a vehicular double-tap, remember? It might be the only reason I still have a sliver of liking for him after taking that poor old guy's morphine. :/
 
Wait, what? People think that scene implies that Madison beat Nick as a child?

Seriously?

Have you never read or seen any other book, movie, or show where a character slaps someone they care about, usually in a moment of frustration and disappointment?

i.e. Batman Begins
 
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