The Walking Dead

[Jarochai Alabaster]

So far, this series is pretty fucking badass. Good story, good character development, excellent zombie make up and effects. There have been a few silly moments; Rick waking from a month-long + coma with little or no noticeable muscle atrophy, characters making headshots while running with 100% accuracy, but these are few and more or less standard fare for action bits. Overall, the focus is definitely staying on the people, and the characters have enough depth to be sustainable, and zombies are fucking scary shit.

Spoilery bits:

Hidden Information!

I totally saw the swarm attack in the last episode coming. And once Amy got up from the campfire I figured she was toast. Can't say I'm sorry to see the fatass who beat his wife go.

Hopefully the show has the balls to continue killing characters as they go, including those that have been established and developed from the start. If none of your main cast ever dies, you lose much of the real sense of danger that is supposed to be the primary ruling factor of these peoples' lives.

Anyone else watching?

[Fallakin Kuvari]

Love. This. Show.

[Minute]

I was going to type up a big long praise on the show, but suffice to say it's probably the best show I've seen in years. I wish the first season was more than 6 episodes, especially considering the ratings have been so through the roof that they are guaranteed many seasons to come.

Hopefully the show has the balls to continue killing characters as they go, including those that have been established and developed from the start. If none of your main cast ever dies, you lose much of the real sense of danger that is supposed to be the primary ruling factor of these peoples' lives.

Did you read the comic? This comic was like no other in that it stayed more true to realistic human actions than any other I've seen. For instance main characters get dropped without any build up or anything. It sort of just follows the line of "shit happens". I absolutely loved it.

[Taxious]

I usually love anything zombie related but I have to say I'm about to give up on this show. I'll give it a couple more episodes but so far I'm not too impressed. Maybe if it was more action instead of 90% drama I'd still be interested, but damn it seems really boring to me so far.

[Jarochai Alabaster]

Maybe if it was more action instead of 90% drama

Honestly, the zombie genre is supposed to be more drama than action. It's about the people and how they react and cope with this "end of the world" scenario. As one of the actors put it, this is a show about people trying not to become monsters, and that doesn't necessarily mean turning into walkers. I think it's got about the right mix of action to drama. Plus, the relative infrequency of zombie hoard fights is that they're that much more tense when they do happen.

My current beef is that the characters are still very one-dimensional. There's some good interactions and tensions being developed between them, but I feel as though the characters could all use a little more depth. I mean, there's enough there to hold my interest, but I'd like a few more layers. Rick is way too "Lee Adama," always looking for the good fight and viewing the world in stark black and white. Shane is losing it, obviously, but I wish we could have seen more of the Rick/Shane friendship before they dove into putting the two at odds. As it stands now Shane is almost pure antagonist, especially with how a few scenes played out during ep5.

Anyway, looking forward to the next episode and the season's conclusion. What is it with AMC airing their series' first seasons at half length? Breaking Bad only had 5 or 6 episodes for its first season, and iirc Mad Men didn't have a full first season either.

[Harlowe]

This series reminds me more of a The Road meets 28 Days Later or maybe 28 Days Later-lite. I really like this series!

For me personally, a truly great post-apocolyptic show (or movie) is going to focus more on the everyday survival obstacles and the personal drama as opposed to focusing primarily on killing zombies or people being killed by zombies. If the primary focus is just zombie-killing, it would get real boring, real fast imo. I love the post-apocolyptic theme in general, because I LOVE seeing how people figure shit out after things get massively fucked up. I guess I find these kinds of films hopeful!

Nitpick:
I agree, it was ridiculous that he woke up from a coma without more muscle atrophy and also, once that IV ran out ....how the heck would he have survived without water for that long?

[Taxious]

The stories and personalties seem very generic to me. The hero, the racist rednecks, the battered wife, etc. I hope they spend another half of an episode showing two sisters talking in a boat about their father because that's so interesting.

I haven't seen the latest (yesterday's) episode yet, hopefully something catches my fancy.

[Harlowe]

I'm not in love with the personalities, other than a few of the main people...the rednecks make me cringe. Not because of how offensive they are, but because they are entirely cliche.

Jericho did a better job with personalities, but the storyline wasn't as entertaining.

[Minute]

the rednecks make me cringe. Not because of how offensive they are, but because they are entirely cliche.

Unfortunately in a lot of post-apocalyptic scenarios the people who would make it through would be those backwoods racists pukes who live the cliche you mention. They are armed to the teeth & due to their love of killing animals for sport in the wild, have a wide array of survival skills. Take it from someone who's surrounded by this different breed of human, there are a lot of people who the lavish stereotype doesn't do justice.

[Taxious]

I grew up in an extremely redneck area of Colorado. I've done my fair share of animal slaughtering, chicken plucking, and lake fishing. I still find it hard to believe that during a zombie apocalypse, anyone would go around calling people niggers and starting fights for no reason.

[Jarochai Alabaster]

You don't think scraping and clawing for survival in a world where everything wants to kill you could bring out the worst in people after a few months? What an odd perception of human nature you have. And the sisters/boat scene was five minutes, tops. Oh noes, character development in a character-driven show on a station that's made a reputation for itself for...developing characters in its' series! Impossibru! How silly of the writers to build on the bond between siblings before killing one of them.

If you want ZOMG ZOMBIES ACTION!!! go watch the Resident Evil flicks. Apparently this just isn't to your tastes, and if ep4 wasn't enough to pique your interest, I doubt ep5 will be.

[Fallakin Kuvari]

Jericho did a better job with personalities, but the storyline wasn't as entertaining.

Personalities is what made Jericho so good. If they could've revamped the storyline and kept the personalities then that show would still be on TV.

That said I hope Hawkins (as he was in Jericho) shows his face in this series again.

[Minute]

LOL, I agree with Jar completely. Tax your idea of how humans will be when the chips are down is optimistically naive.

[Taxious]

If you want ZOMG ZOMBIES ACTION!!! go watch the Resident Evil flicks.

lol... or any of these movies:

28 Days Later
28 Weeks Later
Army of Darkness
Day of the Dead
Diary of the Dead (almost as boring as walking dead)
The Evil Dead
The Evil Dead II
Survival of the Dead
I Am Legend
Land of the Dead
Planet Terror
Resident Evil
Resident Evil: Apocalypse
Resident Evil: Extinction
Shaun of the Dead
Slither
Zombieland
Zombie Strippers
And I'm sure a lot more, these were just the ones I've seen.

Maybe you guys appreciate 20 minute long girl talks about fishing more than I do because you are older and wiser though.

[Jarochai Alabaster]

28 Days Later - Great movie until they introduce the military, then it goes all to shit.

28 Weeks Later - Terrible flick

Army of Darkness - Comedy

Day of the Dead - Good, but so old I've seen it a billion times.

Diary of the Dead (almost as boring as walking dead) - Never heard so much as one good thing about this one, so I never bothered to check it out.

The Evil Dead - Campy

The Evil Dead II - Comedy

Survival of the Dead - I gave up on Romero's films long ago

I Am Legend - Utter crap

Land of the Dead - Also utter crap

Planet Terror - Campy

Resident Evil - Decent (For a video game movie, which isn't saying much)

Resident Evil: Apocalypse - Crap

Resident Evil: Extinction - Absolute crap

Shaun of the Dead - Comedy

Slither - Campy comedy

Zombieland - Decent until the girls arrive at the carnival, then it just gets stupid. I know that's only the last 20mins or so, but it's retarded enough to hurt the movie overall, imo.

Zombie Strippers - Never saw it but given the title, I doubt it's anything other than camp, comedy, crap, or all of the above.


Ok Tax. I understand now why you're not enjoying TWD. Almost every one of these movies that you listed is either comedy or bad. There are very few legitimate character driven pieces on your list. I'd say SotD and Day are about it. As a side note I'm a little surprised you didn't list Dawn of the Dead (Remake) given it's the best example I can think of an action-heavy zombie flick that's still damn good.

From its very fucking premise, TWD isn't going to be like any of the films you've listed. If you want mindless action focused heavily on zombies, then by all means pick something off your list. This show is not for you. You are not its target audience. Bitching about it being heavily character oriented is like bitching that someone made an apple pie when you only wanted peach. Nevermind that there are peach pies on the table, you're just pissed off there's an apple pie, too.

So you don't like your characters to be developed. That's fine. Go check out the latest Final Destination.

[Taxious]

Whoa whoa, hold on there cowboy. When did I say any of those movies I listed were "good", non-campy, or non-comedy? They are just the general zombie genre that I know and love. I must admit it's pretty funny that your requirement for a good flesh-eating monster movie is character development.

As a side note I'm a little surprised you didn't list Dawn of the Dead (Remake) given it's the best example I can think of an action-heavy zombie flick that's still damn good.

Yeah I love Dawn of the Dead too. I just pulled up a zombie movie list and was picking out ones I'd seen and must have missed it.

[Jarochai Alabaster]

I must admit it's pretty funny that your requirement for a good flesh-eating monster movie is character development.

And where did I say that? I know and love (And own) a good chunk from that list. But this show isn't "a good flesh-eating monster movie." It's a character driven drama set in a post-apocalyptic zombie world. In TWD, the characters take precedence over the setting, that's all. All I'm saying is if you don't like it for what it is, don't watch it and don't bitch that it's not your standard-fare mindless zombie slasher. When I'm in the mood for one of those, I'll watch one of those. This show simply fill a completely different role - one that hasn't been sufficiently filled since Romero's original Night/Dawn/Day trilogy, imo (Night and Dawn remakes may be exceptions, but they aren't as well fleshed out as TWD). We've been long overdue for something like this, so I'm loving it despite its occasional flaws.

[Taxious]

if ep4 wasn't enough to pique your interest, I doubt ep5 will be.

That's for fuckin' sure. There are... zombies in this show... some time... right?

Ep. 5 mainly consisted of fishing twat #1 cooing over her dead sister - whom she barely even knew. They were XX years apart and never had the chance to hang out, yet she cries over twat #2's zombie corpse for 30 minutes to try to instill sentiment. WOW CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT BEST SHOW EVER GUYS OMG!

The climax of the episode was when they drive away from where they have been staying for a couple weeks. What am I missing?

Please let me know if this show turns into something other than "Days Of Our Lives (with rare zombie cameos)"

We've been long overdue for something like this

wtf are you talking about? There are plenty of soap operas on TV right now.

[Fallakin Kuvari]

If you don't like it, don't watch it and definitely stop bitching about how bad you think it is.

[Minute]

LOL @ GayGuy_1 calling GayGuy_2 cowboy.

Tax you have some legit bitches. I think the show is focusing on some bullshit drama at times too. But all of those are very minor annoyances that at best keep it from being perfect. It's still fucking amazing.

I was disappointed that they changed the scene in the woods. Shane getting smoked by the kid was the first thing that really endeared me to the comic. First sign that no one was safe. Them straying might mean this show is going to fuck up a good thing. I hope not though