New Show: The Walking Dead

Thorin · November 15, 2010, 02:29:40 PM

I dunno if anyone else has caught The Walking Dead, but I've managed to watch most of the first three episodes so far. Yes, it's based on the comic books, and yes, it's horrifically gross.

The show is about a bunch of Zombie Apocalypse survivors (hey, have you written down your Zombie Apocalypse Survival Plan?). The zombies are called "walkers". The walkers are pretty typical, usually slow-moving but can run (if they have legs). An interesting twist is that they can smell the living and hear sounds, so shooting them with a gun will get you in more trouble, not less (they'll come to investigate the sound). Oh, and the walkers will eat anything living, not just humans or human brains.

There have been some surprisingly frightening scenes that don't necessarily involve violence. For instance, in the first episode a man in a barricaded house is looking out the peephole and sees his wife (now a walker) trying to open the door to get in. Obviously she recognizes the house from her former life.

There are also a couple of stupidities in the plot. For instance, one of the main characters goes into a coma and is left in a hospital that appears to have been overrun with zombies. How does he not get eaten? For another instance, this show is set in Atlanta, Georgia, yet the survivors are having trouble finding guns and ammo.

Apparently the show has hit ratings gold and has already been renewed for another season of 13 episodes (season 1 only has 6 episodes). All in all it's a decent show and I think at least some of us on here will enjoy watching it.

From the Wikipedia article:

Mr. Analog · November 15, 2010, 03:10:35 PM

I've been hooked to it since it started, it very nicely filled the Mad Men Sunday void and I'm happy to say a second season has already been greenlit.

Brilliant programming if you ask me, and looks great in HD.

Melbosa · November 16, 2010, 09:06:57 AM

I'd love to get into it, but Maria is not a zombie fan...

Mr. Analog · November 16, 2010, 02:33:31 PM

Quote from: Melbosa on November 16, 2010, 09:06:57 AM
I'd love to get into it, but Maria is not a zombie fan...

Odd, I thought you were an individual that could watch television on your own

(j/k)

Melbosa · November 16, 2010, 03:25:17 PM

Ouch! There is me time on TV too... but you know... I have my SCI-FIs I can't miss!

Mr. Analog · November 16, 2010, 03:35:21 PM

Quote from: Melbosa on November 16, 2010, 03:25:17 PM
Ouch! There is me time on TV too... but you know... I have my SCI-FIs I can't miss!

Just messin' with ya haha ;-)

At the very least you should queue it up on your Netflix (or whatever), worth checking out, especially if you like Sci-Fi.

Thorin · October 15, 2012, 02:45:17 PM

I was surprised to see that there is a third season to this show. Hurrah! But man, they're living a bleak existence these days. Yet they still have fuel in the gas tanks of their vehicles?

Mr. Analog · October 15, 2012, 02:56:30 PM

Well I haven't watched the S3 opener yet (it's on the PVR for tonight) but I'm not surprised it got renewed, it's one of the more interesting shows out there, Season 2 was pretty darn good.

I don't know where exactly in the timeline things are but likely there are still a lot of resources kicking around as most of the human population is more concerned with how to nibble on the flesh of the living, so I figure if there are enough derelicts around and only a few survivors (as has so far been presented) then fuel will be ready for syphoning for some time. That said I hope they have breath mints haha

That reminds me, a couple weekends ago I watched both versions of "Dawn of the Dead" (1978 and mid-2000s-ish), I had not seen either as I'm not much of a horror movie fan but man, both were good but the 1978 one was amazing, it got me thinking that if there was a zombie apocalypse likely the most successful survivors would be nomadic bands of bikers. The remake had it's moments but overall was less interesting.

If you haven't seen it though yet, check out the '78 version!

Mr. Analog · October 26, 2012, 01:57:34 PM

S3E2 Some thoughts I guess

Spoiler

Not sure if you guys have been keeping up with things but so far I have been ... underwhelmed by the new season, first episode was okay it set a lot of interesting things in motion but episode 2 was more or less pointless. The group has gained a couple of new members that they may or may not be able to trust, why that took a whole episode I don't know.

It was interesting to see where Rick's personal moral compass is now, the end of season 2 seemed to have left a real impact on him.

One thing I'm not enjoying is how hamfisted the foreshadowing is, I mean at this point if you don't know that they're going to end up in a fortified town whose members may or may not have been spying on them for a while by now I don't know what. Also I find it interesting that they're being hemmed in by larger and larger herds, it's one of those background things that you could easily miss but it's an important detail

[close]

Anyway, I hope things pick up in Ep 3

Mr. Analog · November 12, 2014, 11:18:03 AM

Just opening this up again, not sure who else is still watching after Season 4. Season 5 so far hasn't really been very good. Now that the main group is split up episodes have been exploring what each sub-group is doing and to me it's getting repetitious

1. All well organized groups are evil
2. Lone people are evil
3. Small roving groups are evil
4. Everything is lies
5. Things you weren't sure were lies are lies
6. Survivors are more dangerous than the Zombies, every time
7. Sadistic individuals with misplaced ideals hunting Your Favourite Characters(tm)

Much like the characters in the show the series seems to be trying to survive on scraps.

It's kind of like Mad Men where things would get tense and then there'd be a really good payoff or twist where you didn't see it, but now things are just kind of... aimlessly existing... not unlike LOST before it went away... Maybe there's something big but after Season 4 I just don't know

At least Mad Men has an ending, or at least will, as the 60s are closing out in the series. I can't really see them going much further than 1970

Tom · November 12, 2014, 07:28:38 PM

Wait, LOST wasn't aimless from the start? News to me

Mr. Analog · November 13, 2014, 08:25:09 AM

Quote from: Tom on November 12, 2014, 07:28:38 PM
Wait, LOST wasn't aimless from the start? News to me

I didn't say it was aimless from the start, but it sure ended that way, not unlike how the Walking Dead has transformed

Darren Dirt · November 14, 2014, 02:05:14 PM

BREAKING BAD spoiled us all for adult serial drama -- most shows, even on AMC etc, are not as perfectly plotted and planned out. And willing to end on a perfect high note, quality-wise.

Mr. Analog · November 14, 2014, 02:20:12 PM

Quote from: Darren Dirt on November 14, 2014, 02:05:14 PM
BREAKING BAD spoiled us all for adult serial drama -- most shows, even on AMC etc, are not as perfectly plotted and planned out. And willing to end on a perfect high note, quality-wise.

That's for sure.

Oddly enough I feel if they had followed the graphic novel version of the Walking Dead a little closer it would have been better, but that's a hard transition to make sometimes.

Thorin · November 14, 2014, 04:12:04 PM

I'm not sure Breaking Bad spoiled other shows for me. But then I didn't enjoy Breaking Bad as much as you and others seem to have. I mean, there was obviously a lot of thought given to the story for BB, but imagine that show if it hadn't been renewed past season 3, lets say. It would have a much less satisfying ending. There's also quite a few coincidences written into the story, where if things had gone even just a little bit differently the show would have ended right then and there. Or maybe it's just that I didn't identify with the Walter White character at all, at any level; I felt right from the start that it was all about him feeding his ego rather than doing anything good for his family.