The Walking Dead - Season 3.5

[Guest nra37922]

Have you noticed that there hasn't been any zombies with their pants down pass their ass.  Not very realistic for Atlanta....

[Titansfan]

For those interested, AMC has produced two sets of webisodes of Walking Dead that can be found on You Tube.  One has the setting that TSHTF the first day or so.  Second setting is about a week or so into the zombie era.

[monkeylizard]

When they are at the prison they don't do anything at all to fortify the place. Also in season 3 there isn't really a fear of the walkers not like season 1. Its very meh.

 

I agree. I said something about that up the thread somewhere. During S1, we were fearful for the characters. During S2, not so much, but that's because there weren't many Zs at all. When they did show up  in S2 (Shane & Otis in town, In town when they picked up the guy from the other group, Rick and Shane at the school to get rid of the same guy, the finale) they were scary and we feared for the characters. All through S3, the Zs have been an annoyance to the group, not a threat.

 

If the writers want to make this show interesting again, they need to make the Zs scary again. But without doing that with hoardes of them (ie. expensive), I don't see how they can. They made them so easy to kill in S3, so that ship has sailed. There's no plausible way to go back to having to destroy the brain stem like they said at the CDC in S1. Apparently a 2" knife in the eye is enough now.

 

 

 

Bad news on another front: AMC has pushed back the last 8 episiodes of Breaking Bad to August 11 from an earlier reported July airing. Each episode will be followed by Talking Bad much like Talking Dead follows each episode of TWD.

Edited May 13, 2013 by monkeylizard

[JAB]

I agree. I said something about that up the thread somewhere. During S1, we were fearful for the characters. During S1, not so much, but that's because there weren't many Zs at all. When they did show up  in S1 (Shane & Otis in town, In town when they picked up the guy from the other group, Rick and Shane at the school to get rid of the same guy, the finale) they were scary and we feared for the characters. All through S3, the Zs have been an annoyance to the group, not a threat.

 

The same begins being true in the comics as the storyline progresses along.  In the later issues of the comics, hoards are still a concern but individual or small groups of undead are no, big deal.  In fact, in the comics, the group becomes so blase about zombies that it sometimes causes them to be less careful than they should - which on occasion comes back to bite them (literally.)

 

I am coming to realize that the comics (and the show) aren't really a 'zombie story'.  Instead, both are attempting to tell a story of human survival in a world that happens to be overrun with zombies.  The story also investigates how some people may become downright evil while others may do some pretty dark things even as they attempt to remain 'good'.  It also explores why even the 'evil' people may not think of themselves as 'evil' and sometimes even gives some decent justification of why they would feel that way.

 

I have also come to realize, from reading the comics, that The Walking Dead does not necessarily mean what I thought it meant.  At one point in the prison, in the comics story line, Rick states that the group knows that they are all already infected.  He also says that they have no idea how long each of them will survive.  Further, he talks about how they have had to do things and will have to do things that might have been unimaginable to them before the dead rose.  He ends with the statement that he and his group, not the zombies, are really the walking dead (and he actually uses the term, 'walking dead'.)  So, in that sense, the title of the comics and the television show - The Walking Dead - isn't talking about zombies.  It is talking about the survivors, how their former lives have ended, how a less than peaceful death is almost inevitable for all of them and the idea that the people they were, before, are largely gone - i.e. 'dead' - already.

 

Possible Comic Series Spoiler:

 

There is even a scene in the comics where a hoard that is at least as big as the one that attacked Herschel's farm in the television show manages to break into the walled community where Rick et al. are living.  At first, everyone is fighting them.  Eventually, the town is overrun and the living retreat into the shelter of buildings.  Due to a need to protect building Carl is in, however, Rick ends up back on the street, fighting the hoard alone.  Michonne comes to help him and, not wanting to leave the two of them to die without trying to help, other members of Rick's group as well as other folks living in the community come out to help.  In the end, roughly twelve or so living people with mostly melee weapons kill off the majority of the hoard and save the town.

 

At one point in the comics, Rick even comes out and says, basically, that the dead aren't really that big a threat.  He goes on to say that the dead are manageable and that they don't even seem all that scary, anymore.  Instead, he says, it is the living that are the real threat.  He says that it is the living that he and his group really need to fear.  For that matter, just doing a quick 'from memory' calculation in my head, I am thinking that by time the comics reach the current issue, more 'main' characters have been killed by other, living people than have been taken out by zombies.

 

Another, Possible Comic Series Spoiler:

 

In the comics, Rick's group runs into and ends up being stalked by a group of cannibals.  When they find and confront the group, Rick and a few of the other characters hold them down, hack them up with hatchets, knives, etc. and throw their bodies into a fire.  Rick kind of feels badly about it, later, but not enough that you get the sense he wouldn't do the same thing, again.  That is just one example (of many) that the Rick character in the comics is much more ruthless than the Rick in the television series - and that the Rick in the comics is very much changed from the person he was before the outbreak.

Edited May 13, 2013 by JAB

[monkeylizard]

Yeah, I get all that. But I can get that living vs. living drama in other TV shows. What sets TWD apart is that it has zombies. Marginalize them and the writers have marginalized what draws in new viewers and keeps old viewers interested. I mean, take away the zombies from every episode and replace them with other human survivors of EOTWAWKI and the show is just another suvival show. Cool, but not zombie cool.

 

I know it has its haters, but I kind of like Falling Skies. They've kept the focus on humans v. aliens. By the end of last season it was starting to get dull because it was becoming human v. human for the last 2 episodes. I hope they get away from that plot quickly for the next season.

Edited May 13, 2013 by monkeylizard

[JAB]

Yeah, I get all that. But I can get that living vs. living drama in other TV shows. What sets TWD apart is that it has zombies. Marginalize them and the writers have marginalized what draws in new viewers and keeps old viewers interested. I mean, take away the zombies from every episode and replace them with other human survivors of EOTWAWKI and the show is just another suvival show. Cool, but not zombie cool.

 

I know it has its haters, but I kind of like Falling Skies. They've kept the focus on humans v. aliens. By the end of last season it was starting to get dull because it was becoming human v. human for the last 2 episodes. I hope they get away from that plot quickly for the next season.

 

I see what you are saying and I even agree to a certain extent where the television show (but not the comic) is concerned.  I think the 'human conflict in a zombie filled world' angle is possibly 'easier' to work more effectively in the comic.  That said, if all they are doing every week is running around killing zombies then the show just turns into an extended version of another (bad) B movie.  There has to be a balance between all out zombie fighting and the human drama aspect.  Again, I think the comic does a little better job of it but then the human vs. human conflicts in the comics are generally a lot more violent and bloody - exemplifying that even the living are 'The Walking Dead' because survivors, even the 'good guys', have to be every bit as brutal as the zombies in order to survive.

 

Gouging out the Governor's eye with a shard of broken glass was Sesame Street material compared to what Michonne did to him in the comics (after he repeatedly and brutally raped her.)  Let's just say it involved a board, some nails, a pair of pliers, a blowtorch, a spoon and her sword and left him, um, violated, missing one arm, one eye and one other, important part of the male anatomy.  And she was careful to make sure there was at least a decent chance that he would survive the ordeal and have to live with it.

 

I don't necessarily think that the writers need to get back to fighting zombies all the time and I think that, as long as the zombies remain an important element, the living vs. living conflicts can be more interesting than the living vs. undead conflicts.  However, in order for that to work the writers will have to find some way to bring more 'tension' to the living vs. living conflicts - a feat which the comic manages through the use of a level of brutality that probably wouldn't make it on television, even on a basic cable channel - while not letting the zombies drop out of the picture completely.

 

Heck, in the comics there is a group of people with whom Rick's group comes into conflict who are, basically, marauders running a 'protection' racket on a few, other settlements.  These marauders actually keep zombies staked/chained around the perimeter of their headquarters as a first line of defense against living invaders.

Edited May 13, 2013 by JAB

[monkeylizard]

as long as the zombies remain an important element,

 

 

The things is, I don't think they are any more. S3 was all Rick vs Guv.

[JAB]

The things is, I don't think they are any more. S3 was all Rick vs Guv.

 

True, and that got boring.  Honestly, while characters who are 'conflicted' can be interesting, I think that the Rick character on the television show is too conflicted.  He is beginning to seem too wishy-washy to have survived this long in a post-apocalyptic world.  The Rick character in the comic is not as 'likeable' in some ways and his version of being 'conflicted' is that he sometimes feels bad about having brutally killed someone (which doesn't stop him from doing it) but I think I find the comic book version to be more interesting.

 

If it had been the comic book version of Rick who had been approached by Herschel and told about how Carl shot the young guy who appeared to be surrendering after the raid on the prison, I think he would have said, "Well, that's too bad.  It really is.  But I'm sure Carl used his judgement and thought the kid was a threat.  Better him than one of us."

Edited May 13, 2013 by JAB