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Finally caught up and while overall I like it, I find I don't care for any of the characters that much. But maybe that has to do with the Goin from the old world ways to the new world dynamic.

 

It's a pain sometimes to look at a world that totally mirrors our own, and then go "oh zombies were never a thing for them".

 

Side note, in one of my classes last term we kept joking about how "racist" TWD was. Fun to see how the first 3 named characters with speaking roles to be infected/turned/died were black. And then no black people until the wheeling an dealing prisoner last episode.

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Once the collapse of society had been laid out, I was hoping the main characters would start blossoming, but nothing clicked for me in that regard over the last two episodes.

 

And it's a real bummer. I'm interested in the setting, the boat, the military (which is apparently still around and a player next season) -- heck I'm even interested in seeing how a drier climate affects walker decomposition!

 

There's a lot to bring me back, but then there's those pesky characters. It's like I had a walker apocalypse nightmare where everybody was Beth. And I don't get it! Kim Dickens, Cliff Curtis, Rubén Blades -- they are all likable and seem like capable actors, but the only character I'm even vaguely interested in at this time is Strand (again, withe the caveat that he could become "a bit much" at any time). Meh.

 

I'm holding out hope. Like I said, I do like a lot of stuff about this series. And characters can grow: for example, would have been fine with Glenn or Carol becoming walker chow early in TWD's run, and now they are favorite characters. FTWD is nice undead filler before TWD comes back, and if it can bring some depth and emotional heft to their players, it will become a nifty show on its own. But right now, it's like watching Vehicle Voltron episodes, waiting for the Lion Voltron run to roll back around -- yeah, it's got its moments and is interesting, but where are the lions, dammit?

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This show is both good and frustrating.

Good because it uses the "FEAR" in the title as the antagonist as opposed to a villain like The Governor or Negan. The characters are really facing the unknown and are coming to terms with a post-apocolyptic world, so it's fun getting to see them learn about it and start to adapt. I sort of wish that things hadn't so quickly gone to pot in the show so that could have been played with a bit more, but realistically you only have the time span in which Rick was in a coma to do it. I also love the fact that since it's on the West Coast, it's practically a completely different world than the main show and comic that's set in the South and East Coast. Things could have gone completely different with different rules there for all we know.

At the same time, it's frustrating because it suffers the same problem as any other show that tries to force me into caring about a family dynamic. I never could get into Bloodline for the same reasons, I just can't be convinced to care about whiney people making silly decisions and worrying about drama that I'm not invested in. I also really don't understand the Strand character, who seems to have wandered in from a completely different show and genre. Everyone else seems plausible and realistic enough, but he seems to have come directly from a cheesy Roland Emmerich movie or something.

Still though, I'm loving the direction the show is heading. I'll be on board when it comes back.

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Rick was shot before the everything started, but woke when everything had already become post-apocalyptic. Everything almost completely descended in the time that he was out.

Yeah, after Rick wakes up, he sees a helicopter and nobody believes him. In Episode 6 of FTWD, we see a helicopter leaving.

 

Of course, things could have gone downhill a little faster or slower on the East Coast, but Rick's coma makes for a workable point of reference.

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Rick woke up to find everything in his part of Georgia had gone apocalyptic. We have no reason to think LA would have to fall apart at the same rate or to the same level as Atlanta.

 

We know that everything went to shit from Texas to Washington DC. There very well could be enclaves of civilization around LA. FTWD is not bound to depict the world as we find it with Rick in the pilot for TWD.

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Guest El Chalupacabra

Since FTWD debuted I have yet to see a single episode. I felt like I was missing something monumental.....

 

 

FTWD is nice undead filler before TWD comes back, and if it can bring some depth and emotional heft to their players, it will become a nifty show on its own. But right now, it's like watching Vehicle Voltron episodes, waiting for the Lion Voltron run to roll back around -- yeah, it's got its moments and is interesting, but where are the lions, dammit?

 

....but this analogy totally makes sense. Quite possibly one of the best analogies about anything I have read at nightly about any TV show. Now I don't feel so bad for missing FTWD. I will catch up when it is on Netflix.

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Rick woke up to find everything in his part of Georgia had gone apocalyptic. We have no reason to think LA would have to fall apart at the same rate or to the same level as Atlanta.

 

True, but the walkers had more or less taken over when he'd woken up. Morgan and his son seemed to be the only living humans left in his Atlanta suburb, and he didn't even see anyone either on the way there or in midtown until Glen contacted him over the CB. LA is way more dense than Atlanta, so it would have gotten covered up a lot faster.

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I'm on bored for the rest of the year.

 

And no, that's neither a typo nor a spelling error. *sigh*

 

I love Kirkman...and that's pretty much the only thing keeping me going at this point. I'm with Pong in that I had hopes things would improve after the show established itself. That has, sadly, not happened. If 90% of the cast were eaten next week, it wouldn't bother me one bit. That's also sad. By now, I keep thinking I ought to care about at least one or two people. There are barely that many characters I even have an opinion of, let alone have become invested in in any way. I sort of like the daughter (druggie Johnny Depp's sister). I'm a bit intrigued by this Strand guy, but it's not even clear if he's going to be a regular part of the group. I hope so, as he's really the only real potential I can see among the current characters.

 

That's it. The rest of either annoying or just...there. And it's hard to care about a show when you don't really care about anyone on the show. :no:

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It's really quite maddening, because from a technical standpoint, the acting is better than it was on TWD's original 6-episode run. In fact, there are several scenes from the last few episodes that I thought were well done:

  • Madison, (and especially) Travis, and Liza during the bite reveal/shoot me scene
  • Travis not being able to pull the trigger on "Kimberly."
  • Madison losing it and beating the crap out of Nick
  • Nick's "Oh ****" moment and lame cover with Dr. Exner when he realizes the jig is up
  • Chris and Alicia in the rich people's house
  • Daniel admitting his past
  • Ofelia throwing **** at the troops

In other words: all the main characters had their moments.

 

But even so, with the possible exception of Chris/Alicia scene, there is just no resonance with me. It's the weirdest damn thing.

 

I'm coming back because of West Coast, boat wars, military, and Strand. But they really could start off with an entirely new cast next season and I wouldn't be upset.

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I'm evidently the odd one out, I thought this was more entertaining than Walking Dead has been in a while honestly. I liked the Daniel & Madison characters, and think the others will grow in time the same way they did on the main show.

 

Ashaman - my friend group have noticed the same - it's almost as if they're only allowed to have one black character an episode. (Max 2 if one is going to die that week or the next)

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Rick woke up to find everything in his part of Georgia had gone apocalyptic. We have no reason to think LA would have to fall apart at the same rate or to the same level as Atlanta.

 

We know that everything went to **** from Texas to Washington DC. There very well could be enclaves of civilization around LA. FTWD is not bound to depict the world as we find it with Rick in the pilot for TWD.

Why not? In the 1st season finale of TWD, Dr. Jenner gave a hint about how bad things were in general:

 

 

Jenner [To Andrea]: It was the French.

Andrea: What?

Jenner: They were the last ones to hold out as far as I know. While our people were bolting out the doors and committing suicide in the hallways, they stayed in the labs till the end. They thought they were close to a solution.

Jacqui: What happened?

Jenner: The same thing that’s happening here. No power grid. Ran out of juice. The world runs on fossil fuel. I mean, how stupid is that?

 

 

 

 

Andrea: Somebody must know something. Somebody somewhere.

Carol: There are others, right? Other facilities?

Jenner: There may be some. People like me.

Rick: But you don’t know? How can you not know?

Jenner: Everything went down. Communications, directives—all of it. I’ve been in the dark for almost a month.

Andrea: So it’s not just here. There’s nothing left anywhere? Nothing? That’s what you’re really saying, right?

 

Several important details--among them, the failure of the grid--and all that means for a society utterly unprepared to live without it.The only other agency working on a cure--in another country--also stopped when the power failed, but what was key is that France was hit by the zombie plague. A fair guess would (at least) conclude if other industrialized countries were falling apart, what would spare the American southwest? Between its death rates and overpopulation, the zombie plague would level a place like Los Angeles in quick fashion, no matter how the government responded.

 

Based on everything Jenner said being his memory of past events, all that he reveals in the dialogue occured in the period when Rick was in a coma--which has to be the same period as FTWD season 1, so there cannot be too many stark differences in the time and method of civilization falling.

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  • 1 month later...
Guest El Chalupacabra

So, I finally caught up and binge watched this show. Definitely sub-par, but has my interest just enough see season 2. First, as far as likable characters, I agree, slim pickings here. Pretty much the only ones I can say I like are Daniel Salizar and Strand, both not exactly good guys, and both really deserve to be eaten. Travis seems kind of a bumbler. Madison I really don't care for, but don't exactly hate yet, either. I am rooting for Alicia to die horribly, preferably watching her own intestines being eaten alive by a crowd of zombies, and if Nick and Christopher are desert, that is fine with me. This show definitely needs a Michonne, a Carol, and a Daryl type of characters for season 2, because I just don't have much invested for any of the current cast.

 

The writing seems too much like exactly what it is: people who wrote so long for TWD that they forgot how these characters should know nothing about the zombies, but should also have some common sense. The whole collapse of society just seems a little to convenient and went a little too fast, yet I understand why they sped it up. The problem was during the first couple episodes it was boring as hell, so I am sure that's why things were sped along, and besides we know how it goes down, anyway. Just wish the writing had been more clever is all. I really didn't start getting into it until episode 5, as opposed to the original show, where I was on board from episode 1.

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  • 2 years later...

No. I tried the first season, but when they skipped from the initial outbreak to an isolated survivor community, I rather gave up. I watched up to the first season finale. I do like Garret Dillahunt, so maybe I quit too soon. I can't imagine it would be too hard to jump in even now, though. How much backstory is really needed?

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Ironic that you say that because season 4 is pretty much doing that. It's alternating between two timelines. There's the present, in which the characters tell how they got to this point while going through their current plights. And the flashbacks which show what they were doing before. The flashbacks aren't just 2-3 minute clips either. Some are whole episodes long in which we see the whole backstory and then at the end we return to the present after they finished remembering what went down.

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Guest El Chalupacabra

Ironic that you say that because season 4 is pretty much doing that. It's alternating between two timelines. There's the present, in which the characters tell how they got to this point while going through their current plights. And the flashbacks which show what they were doing before. The flashbacks aren't just 2-3 minute clips either. Some are whole episodes long in which we see the whole backstory and then at the end we return to the present after they finished remembering what went down.

I'm only current up to the end of season 3 and have seen nothing of 4.

 

So let me get this straight, they took until season 4 to actually show how the zombie apocalypse went down?

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