Fear the Festering Turd (aka Fear The Walking Dead)
- Thread starter shavedape
- Start date
Bluce Ree
Tech Admin / Council Member
I'm still trying to figure out how this particular story got approved as the vehicle for the show. I mean, a teenage junkie replete with annoying teen sister, soccer mom from hell and D-bag "step dad" (aka Mom's live-in bf)? Who thought that would be a good idea?
Fact is, I don't give a sht that they are a "blended" family despite the media trying to claim that that's a big deal (it's not). The fact is they are incredibly boring and tedious and lame and moronic and unsympathetic and unlikable and gross and disgusting. They aren't protagonists. They are just...nothing.
My biggest gripe about the show is that I know -- I just know -- that the members of this annoying family will not be killed off. Certainly not as quickly as they should be, sigh...
I read an article recently comparing this pilot to other series' pilots. People are used to the pilot being the all-out explosive episode designed to fish in viewers and hook them into the show, if even at least in the short term. He went on to say that he was perplexed by this pilot and couldn't understand why it broke those rules. Like you, he was at a loss trying to figure out how this particular pilot was chosen to be the show's launch vehicle, going on to say that, with only 6 episodes on order for the first season (like the original series), it was baffling that they would piss away so much airtime doing nothing of any consequence with nothing much happening.
shavedape
Well Known GateFan
Baffling indeed. I mean, I don't expect instant balls-to-the-wall action right out of the gate. But I expect to be shown obvious signs of what is to come in a logically progressing way. Just showing us a couple girls watching a video on their phones isn't enough to be realistic. It doesn't explain anything really.
And if there was a mysterious flu that was taking half the kids out of school that would not only be national news but everyone would be hysterical over it. -- Yet we didn't get any of that. The characters basically just shrugged at the fact that there was an epidemic (pandemic?) underway. "Oh, only five kids on the school bus today? Ho hum."
That wasn't realistic at all, especially when one considers the mass hysteria that happens in the real world when even the slightest event happens. So the most I can figure is that in the FtWD universe the municipalities put Xanax into the water supply. That's the only thing that would explain the general apathy everyone has towards what is clearly going on around them. Other issues: Why didn't they explain where the virus came from? Why didn't they show us how it developed? Why didn't they show us how it is able to spread so rapidly? They don't have to give us all the answers right out of the box but they could have shown us something, a hint, a morsel. Instead we got D-bag dad fixing a sink, that's it.
YJ02
Well Known GateFan
Baffling indeed. I mean, I don't expect instant balls-to-the-wall action right out of the gate. But I expect to be shown obvious signs of what is to come in a logically progressing way. Just showing us a couple girls watching a video on their phones isn't enough to be realistic. It doesn't explain anything really.
And if there was a mysterious flu that was taking half the kids out of school that would not only be national news but everyone would be hysterical over it. -- Yet we didn't get any of that. The characters basically just shrugged at the fact that there was an epidemic (pandemic?) underway. "Oh, only five kids on the school bus today? Ho hum."
Other issues: Why didn't they explain where the virus came from? Why didn't they show us how it developed? Why didn't they show us how it is able to spread so rapidly? They don't have to give us all the answers right out of the box but they could have shown us something, a hint, a morsel. Instead we got D-bag dad fixing a sink, that's it.
oh silly! everyone knows that ( and would be about the only cool thing about TWD if true)
hey the blue meth IS in TWD after all (#6)
https://au.beamly.com/tv-news/2014/10/09/breaking-bad-prequel-walking-dead/
shavedape
Well Known GateFan
Okay, second episode and the pace is starting to pick up. But it's a weird pace. The characters still seem fairly moronic. I'm still not sure why they didn't contact the police after Nick ran over his drug-dealing buddy. And it would have helped to set the mood better if we had been shown the conversation that the lead chick (can't remember her name) had with the neighbors across the street who were having a kids birthday party. Supposedly she went over to warn them about the weird zombie stuff going down but we never got to see their reaction. So basically some people are clued-in to weirdness going down (stocking up on supplies, etc.) while others are willfully ignoring it. M'kay.
shavedape
Well Known GateFan
You really should because you could dissect it well. It would be interesting to hear your thoughts.
shavedape
Well Known GateFan
The ending was confusing in that they didn't show and/or explain it well. There was the family across the street that was taking down the bouncy house from their kid's party and then a zed goes over and starts to munch on one or more people. Couldn't tell exactly who or what was being eaten. The daughter of the main character referred to the zed by a guy's name ("Why is Mr. So and So attacking the Smiths?") so was that supposed to be the neighbor that they saw coughing earlier as he loaded up his car to leave town? Did he die and turn in the intervening time? Or was it just a random neighbor that had turned, one we hadn't seen earlier? They did a really bad job of explaining this.
shavedape
Well Known GateFan
Don't you find this show just plain weird? And I don't mean in a scary zombie way either. It's more than just the bad Walking Dead show runner/writing nonsense too. There's something really wrong with it, all the way down to the core. It just doesn't work.
Bluce Ree
Tech Admin / Council Member
My impression so far is that it seems the writers were green-lit to go as soapy as they wish with this show. The ambient feeling is one of a troubled family going through family issues. I don't get a sense of peril and impending doom.
At the end of each episode I found myself wondering what the hell the drug addicted kid is going to do next, proof that this show is way off the suggested mark (or dead on the intended mark, depending on their goal).
Bluce Ree
Tech Admin / Council Member
Just like it's mother, TWD.
Compared to Fear the Walking Drama, TWD is a jewel right now. I was actually looking forward to a TWD episode after watching the first two of this show. It's that bad.
shavedape
Well Known GateFan
Here's the weird thing -- it doesn't even rise to the level of a muddled soap opera. The best word to describe the tone of the show would be "apathetic". The main characters are boring and unsympathetic. Getting bitten by a zombie would be the best thing for them because then they would become interesting for a short while.
And even though the pace picked up in the second episode the show continued to lack a sense of urgency; it didn't project a feeling of fear or concern for the characters. In fact the most empathy I felt was for the minor character of the nerd-ish high school kid with bad acne. So far he's the only one with his head screwed on straight in this whole thing. I hope we haven't seen the last of him because I'm already tired of the somewhat shrill mother and her douche live-in BF and her feral, spoiled teenage children.
I've tried twice now to watch the premiere. Each time I just got bored to death and shut it off.
Where does one start?
Unlikeable characters. No one to root for as a result. Wildly excessive melodrama. Pacing that is way too slow. I started rooting for the characters to be eaten by walkers. Yes, the walkers in this show are much more interesting than the human characters.
Where does one start?
Unlikeable characters. No one to root for as a result. Wildly excessive melodrama. Pacing that is way too slow. I started rooting for the characters to be eaten by walkers. Yes, the walkers in this show are much more interesting than the human characters.
shavedape
Well Known GateFan
I've heard that Kirkman has no desire to do an actual origin story of how the virus began. This seems to be the case based upon what little we've been shown so far. We've been given the drug-addled perspective of a heroin junkie, but we haven't even been given a glimpse of what health care workers or fire and police personnel are dealing with. That's where the meat of the story lies but dumb ass Kirkman has no desire to give it to us.
I am unimpressed with Kirkman. Even his comics have gotten stale and stupid (now we have yet another group threatening the group of fortified towns in the TWD comic - it gets stupid). I'm sick of the pessimism and negativity - he should have had his comics instead focus on these towns expanding and clearing out the walkers and setting up a civilization.