Fear the Walking Dead

[Onkel Neal]

I wanted to like the original WD series, but after the first few episodes, it became a strained bore. I still watch it, mainly for laughs.

Now they have a new series, based on the same events but starting earlier in the timeline, in LA. So I'm going to give it a try. Fear the Walking Dead, first two episodes are out. Episode one, setting us up with the main characters, a typically awful, self-absorbed bunch. Husband has a shrill ex, petulant kid, and a new wife, with two really annoying step kids. The son is all of 19 and has a serious drug problem. Daughter pouts. Man, I feel for this guy, and the zombies haven't even shown up yet.

But they will. And that's the part that attracts me; the gradual realization that the would is coming to an awful end. How they portray that in the series will determine how much interest I have. So far, they are doing ok. Episode two

 

gives is a glimpse of how law enforcement will handle zombies, and how the street crowds react. I can see how the zombie outbreak will go wide, with all the rioters, looters, and idiot anarchists rampaging, who will slow down the zombie infection? No one.

I would love it if the show had some prepper characters in it, but so far, it's mostly just this one extended family, who are very seriously not the best candidates to survive a zombie apocalypse.

Stay tuned for episode 3 next week.

[Oberon]

Going to try and pick this one up tonight, big fan of TWD so hopefully will enjoy this.

[Eichhörnchen]

We got to the end of series four, I think, then decided it had lost its way. Will give this a go, however; my wife is a diehard zombie fan.

[Onkel Neal]

Let me know what you think after you get through ep2

[Herr-Berbunch]

I got really bored after a couple of episodes of the last series (actually a season or two before but I stuck at it) but started watching Fear last night, got halfway through and was tired, and bored again, but I'll stick with it for a while longer.

At least there's no Rick and son.

[Stealhead]

If you ask me Zombies work in a B movie such as Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Return of the Living Dead. I guess I was ahead of the trend I and my brother and a few friends we liked those movies when they where on VHS. It was interesting while at the same time not being pretentious.

Now you have "zombie family" stickers in other words zombies are too main stream.Zombies would go hungry not many good brains left to eat.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

I wanted to like the original WD series, but after the first few episodes, it became a strained bore. I still watch it, mainly for laughs.

Now they have a new series, based on the same events but starting earlier in the timeline, in LA. So I'm going to give it a try. Fear the Walking Dead, first two episodes are out. Episode one, setting us up with the main characters, a typically awful, self-absorbed bunch. Husband has a shrill ex, petulant kid, and a new wife, with two really annoying step kids. The son is all of 19 and has a serious drug problem. Daughter pouts. Man, I feel for this guy, and the zombies haven't even shown up yet.

Yeah, they made sure they checked all the boxes there for the LA scene.

But they will. And that's the part that attracts me; the gradual realization that the would is coming to an awful end. How they portray that in the series will determine how much interest I have. So far, they are doing ok. Episode two

I must admit, that gradual decline into chaos is probably one of the best parts of this genre, the threads that bind society slowing coming apart as the protagonist struggles to come to terms with the new status quo.

 

gives is a glimpse of how law enforcement will handle zombies, and how the street crowds react. I can see how the zombie outbreak will go wide, with all the rioters, looters, and idiot anarchists rampaging, who will slow down the zombie infection? No one.

 

Looting is a given in this kind of situation, let's face it in a suburban US setting it doesn't take much for looters to come out. The rioters and anarchists will quickly clear up when they realise what the police are really after.

I would love it if the show had some prepper characters in it, but so far, it's mostly just this one extended family, who are very seriously not the best candidates to survive a zombie apocalypse.

Stay tuned for episode 3 next week.

That would probably make for very boring television, they'd bug out at the earliest opportunity and probably wouldn't see a zombie until a few months into the infection, and by that time you're into TWD territory.



My take on the two episodes so far.

 

Good, the gradual decline is handled quite well, although there appears to be a disturbing lack of people watching televisions and the national media outlets seem to be slow to pick up on the spate of shootings, considering how quickly Ferguson flooded the airways.
The kid at the school was probably the most accurate of todays interconnected society, he saw it coming and wanted to prepare. If anything he was perhaps the closest to a 'prepper' so far. Unfortunately, I suspect that we will not see him again, except perhaps as a roving corpse. Prepping is one thing, surviving is quite another.
The ignorance before the storm is a nice touch though, and something that hasn't really changed in over a hundred years. When Wells wrote The War of the Worlds, he commented on how the area around the initial landing point was completely oblivious to the fact that a hundred odd people had been burnt to death by a deadly alien weapon during the night.
The cast are...well they tick the demographic boxes, but I can see them beginning to grate a little, Lori style. I guess this will make it all the more satisfying when one of them gets shot or eaten...because let's face it, you know it'll happen.
It's an interesting choice to put a drug addict in the middle of it, that's a bit of maintenance that you've got to upkeep in making sure he goes through the withdrawal process authentically. They might just get fed up of this and get him eaten at some point.

The problem I think that this series will face is that at some point they're going to end up treading the same path as TWD. TWD opened a few weeks into the event, with a couple of flashbacks to it. At some point, FTWD is going to reach that time-zone and it'll either continue as a separate series to TWD, or stop. I guess it depends on what focus they want to make it, of the downfall of mankind, or another zombie survival genre.

Also...just one last thing. LA was sure hesitant to get in the National Guard, weren't they? I was expecting to see more Apache and Cobra gunships in the air, not to mention Chinooks and Huey evacuation teams for hospitals and the like. Maybe that'll come next episode.
Would be nice if they pulled out all the stops and gave us an LA version of 'Yonkers'.

[Betonov]

I'm a fan of survival so it's strange I havent' seen the both series yet
I should get into it.

[Catfish]

What do you mean, fear the walking dead?
It took 10 minutes until the 'screen' came up (in my bath mirror, this morning), and i sure looked dead, but no one has to fear me

[mako88sb]

As popular as zombies are these days, they could keep coming up with all kinds of prequels for years. Different cities, countries, military bases, returning carriers and subs. Even something along the lines of crime organizations vs zombies. I wasn't really into it much before but must admit I'm hooked now.

[Betonov]

Mafia vs zombies

You may want to patent that becasue I'm honestly convicned that would be the most bad ass series ever

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Stealhead

Now you have "zombie family" stickers in other words zombies are too main stream.Zombies would go hungry not many good brains left to eat.

CLASSIC!!

[Torplexed]

Who needs fake zombies when the world is full of real ones shambling about?

[limkol]

@ Torplexed:

You got that right

[ikalugin]

Knowing how our security/law enforcement works (that and how all commieblock appartment buildings are zombie proof with added tendency of population to sit in those commieblock appartments) I think that we would just slide into totalitarism.

After all, we had gopnick appocalypse and somehow we are still here.