The Walking Dead

[fairweatherfan]

Ok, so any guesses what Dr. Exposition whispered in Rick's ear?

I'm going with "There was a camera in the shower.  God bless you."

I'm pretty confident its this:

Everyone is already infected, because in the comics everyone has the virus. Even if you die from a "normal" trauma you still reanimate.

Spoiler tagged because its a guess based on comic knowledge.

This is one popular theory.  The other is "Your wife is pregnant.  And it's mine.  Haha, seriously though it's probably your best friend's."

Would make sense since it would bring the Shane/Rick stuff to a head.  Also, the infection idea would have serious implications for the nature of the zombies, and the pregnancy would have serious implications for the characters' relationships.  I think the show has been pretty consistent as to which type of drama it prefers.

Oh well, just gotta wait til October to find out!  Despite its flaws I really enjoyed the season.  Hopefully with a bigger budget next season we'll see some really impressive set pieces.

[Fafnir]

Yeah pregnancy would be the other option. I didn't think of that, I officially switch my guess.

[indeedproceed]

She probably is pregnant.

I was unimpressed by the finale.

[Birdbrain]

Ok, so any guesses what Dr. Exposition whispered in Rick's ear?

I'm going with "There was a camera in the shower.  God bless you."

I'm pretty confident its this:

Everyone is already infected, because in the comics everyone has the virus. Even if you die from a "normal" trauma you still reanimate.

Spoiler tagged because its a guess based on comic knowledge.

Wow, makes sense though.  So it is a virus and not some act of God?  Because that type of explanation reminds me of Night of the Living Dead concept where the 'souls bucket' has been filled and no more souls can be taken.  I'm paraphrasing but, that's how I remember it being explained.

I have to say I was a bit disappointed in the season finale.  Too much personal drama not enough zombies.  I desperately wanted the blond lady to stay at CDC to remove her from the cast.  I also don't really care about cheating on his wife story.  She is more to blame.  Her husband was 'dead to her' for a mere 2 months at most and she's with his partner.  Fails logic but, that's just one of many logic failures which I guess is cool for Zombie flick.

[fairweatherfan]

Wow, makes sense though.  So it is a virus and not some act of God?  Because that type of explanation reminds me of Night of the Living Dead concept where the 'souls bucket' has been filled and no more souls can be taken.  I'm paraphrasing but, that's how I remember it being explained.

In Night of the Living Dead, it's radiation from a probe sent to Venus that reanimates everybody.  The quote you're thinking of is "When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth" which is from Dawn of the Dead, but wasn't really meant to explain the cause of the zombies.

I was unimpressed by the finale.

I was pretty meh on most of the plot points - the ticking clock thing was pretty cheesy and didn't make much sense. I get that it's more about the characters, but the actual events all seem to be secondary to the point of meaning very little.  I hope they can find a better balance next season. 

I've been really impressed the last couple of episodes with how they've developed Shane's character though.  He's clearly a villain, but his motivations seem realistic and conflicted.  When he cornered Lori I found myself sympathizing with him right up until he tried to rape her.  That's a very tough line to walk and they're doing it well.

[Birdbrain]

Wow, makes sense though.  So it is a virus and not some act of God?  Because that type of explanation reminds me of Night of the Living Dead concept where the 'souls bucket' has been filled and no more souls can be taken.  I'm paraphrasing but, that's how I remember it being explained.

In Night of the Living Dead, it's radiation from a probe sent to Venus that reanimates everybody.  The quote you're thinking of is "When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth" which is from Dawn of the Dead, but wasn't really meant to explain the cause of the zombies.

I was unimpressed by the finale.

I was pretty meh on most of the plot points - the ticking clock thing was pretty cheesy and didn't make much sense. I get that it's more about the characters, but the actual events all seem to be secondary to the point of meaning very little.  I hope they can find a better balance next season. 

I've been really impressed the last couple of episodes with how they've developed Shane's character though.  He's clearly a villain, but his motivations seem realistic and conflicted.  When he cornered Lori I found myself sympathizing with him right up until he tried to rape her.  That's a very tough line to walk and they're doing it well.

Thanks Dawn of the Dead but, I disagree with your premise and think it was stated that way to leave it up to the individuals interpretation. 

[guava_wrench]

I loved the 6 episodes. I won't join the speculation because I am worried about spoilers from people already familiar with the story (assuming the TV series will be the same).

[fairweatherfan]

Wow, makes sense though.  So it is a virus and not some act of God?  Because that type of explanation reminds me of Night of the Living Dead concept where the 'souls bucket' has been filled and no more souls can be taken.  I'm paraphrasing but, that's how I remember it being explained.

In Night of the Living Dead, it's radiation from a probe sent to Venus that reanimates everybody.  The quote you're thinking of is "When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth" which is from Dawn of the Dead, but wasn't really meant to explain the cause of the zombies.

Thanks Dawn of the Dead but, I disagree with your premise and think it was stated that way to leave it up to the individuals interpretation. 

The movie said a returning space probe reanimated the dead so that people could make their own interpretations of what was reanimating the dead?

[Birdbrain]

Wow, makes sense though.  So it is a virus and not some act of God?  Because that type of explanation reminds me of Night of the Living Dead concept where the 'souls bucket' has been filled and no more souls can be taken.  I'm paraphrasing but, that's how I remember it being explained.

In Night of the Living Dead, it's radiation from a probe sent to Venus that reanimates everybody.  The quote you're thinking of is "When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth" which is from Dawn of the Dead, but wasn't really meant to explain the cause of the zombies.

Thanks Dawn of the Dead but, I disagree with your premise and think it was stated that way to leave it up to the individuals interpretation. 

The movie said a returning space probe reanimated the dead so that people could make their own interpretations of what was reanimating the dead?

The remake or the original?  I don't remember a space probe being mentioned in the remake.  If so I stand corrected. I haven't seen the original in a while and it was pretty bad in comparison.

It is Hollywood so the chances of it being anything more than a virus or space probe (??) are probably less than 1%. 

[Brendan]

This was almost a good show. Something about it didn't get me over the hump. Honestly why hang around big cities at all? Get in your van and west get a map find some place you can live off the land. How long can the zombies last without any food anyways?

I'm not talking about small towns - I'm talking about big old open space rural areas. There crew is a bit small to survive for more than one generation - but there have to be other pockets of survivors, can zombies last 5 years without food?

My thought on what was whispered was something along the lines of the virus having multiple pathways - bite/scratcth infections progress rapidly - airborne exposure advances very slowly - maybe years.

But I like the "your wife is X months pregnant" where the date pretty much makes it not his.

[indeedproceed]

So here is what I don't really like about The Walking Dead..and this is going to take a while and come off as "internet fanboy female-doggy", because while I'm going to complain about the series..its not like I'm going to miss an episode next year. I enjoy the show. Now, to the complaining:

The biggest problem I have with the show isn't the hyper emotional dealings between survivors. The dialogue, acting..its all 'kinda good', but not great, but honestly that's not such a big deal to me. It is a show about zombies...I got 6 hours of it this year, when most times I only get 1.5 to 2 hours in a movie once a year. A serial about zombies is awesome, even if the dialogue sucks sometimes.

My biggest problem is the whole execution of 'the world'. Zombie movies (and any other kind of apocalypse/invasion) as a concept are cool because they take places and people that are familiar and safe and turn that environment into one that is dangerous, challenging, and new.

In creating this world, it is important at once to create one that is scary, that is lethal (to everyone besides the hero), but one that also has a clear "Way out". Any other ending (see the remake of Dawn of the Dead) is gimmicky.

Here are the premises, as I understand them..the problems with them that I have:
1) There was an outbreak of disease that turns people into Zombies. This is so far, completely unexplained.
-The problem I have with this, is that there isn't any kind of "It first started in Tulsa" or anything. At some point this just happened, and it has miraculously spread all over the world like a extinction level event. No attempt to explain any of this is made...I don't so much care about that, except they went to the freaking CDC. If you're going to ask anyone "where did it start? How did it spread??" and get a lil splash of backstory...well that's the place!

2) The infection spreads by exchange of body fluid, usually though bites, although it is implied direct blood infection is possible.
-No problems with this at all. SOP.

3) After infection, it takes an indeterminate amount of time fully 'turn someone'. If a live person is bitten, they go through a fever sickness before turning, with pretty unmistakable symptoms. If a person is infected than immediately dies (but not through brain injury), then re-animation can be pretty quick.
-See the next one

4) The entire world is infected, all attempts to help from the Government have failed, and apparently 99% of the people in the world are either dead or walking dead.
-This doesn't make any sense to me. These things are shuffling corpses, with zero intelligence. There are clear indicators for lots of those who eventually turned in the form of a fever (which after it was known what was going on..there would be time to neutralize them). I was thinking about this on my drive to work today, but if you wanted to escape them, the method is pretty easy: Go somewhere cold for a year. The winter exposure would freeze them..and after a year, most of the flesh would rot right off the bones of 90% of the walking dead. Bodies only last in the open for so long, you know?

And even if that wasn't an option and you had to 'fight them', there are a heck of a lot more bullets than there are people in the world. If Patrick Swayze can fight the russians as a teenager, I like to think that a fully trained navy seal with an assault rifle can hold off a few hundred zombies all by his lonesome. Plus, these things can barely open doors! I mean...what the heck!


Yes, I know. "Just buy the premise and enjoy the ride you nitpicking nerd." But, I love this stuff. Superheroes, Zombies, anything that takes our world and flips it on its head, esp with supernatural stuff involved. I have seen every episode of Trueblood (it is a little sad that is is becoming the new cool thing to make fun of...TBH, it is a little...gay, but I like that show. Hopefully they release a new twilight movie or something so people have something else to pick on), I've seen every epi of Supernatural..that's my genre..and the Walking Dead is a pioneer for me..I just wish their premises were better thought out.

[fairweatherfan]

Wow, makes sense though.  So it is a virus and not some act of God?  Because that type of explanation reminds me of Night of the Living Dead concept where the 'souls bucket' has been filled and no more souls can be taken.  I'm paraphrasing but, that's how I remember it being explained.

In Night of the Living Dead, it's radiation from a probe sent to Venus that reanimates everybody.  The quote you're thinking of is "When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth" which is from Dawn of the Dead, but wasn't really meant to explain the cause of the zombies.

Thanks Dawn of the Dead but, I disagree with your premise and think it was stated that way to leave it up to the individuals interpretation. 

The movie said a returning space probe reanimated the dead so that people could make their own interpretations of what was reanimating the dead?

The remake or the original?  I don't remember a space probe being mentioned in the remake.  If so I stand corrected. I haven't seen the original in a while and it was pretty bad in comparison.

It is Hollywood so the chances of it being anything more than a virus or space probe (??) are probably less than 1%. 

Oh I gotcha.  I was confused by you talking about the Night of the Living Dead.  The original Dawn is a sequel to that and so it has the same cause.  The remake stands alone so it's never explained.  The "no more room in hell" line is in both.

[Brendan]

redacted - see post two up for the whole thing

Good write up I agree with most of your points, something just is not clicking in the show for me. I think the danger seems a bit phoney and the out seems to hard to get.

The world is very dangerous, but a bit too silly dangerous. I mean the zombies basically launched a sneak attack on all fronts on the camp, but cannot open a door. Some of their contact with zombies is absolutely comical. Atlanta is surrounded by suburbs, no matter how much looting there was - there would be relatively close, well supplied towns to go to, that are also not over run with zombies (especially since everyone went to ATL.) Also the zombies are attracted to smell and loud noises, maybe movement too - which are plausible given the virus taking over the host lower brain. But there are also easy ways to conceal smell and eliminate loud noises. They could trap live animals and set them up in the middle of town with some loud noises to draw in all the zombies, then blow up all the zombies that come in (or just have a zombie hunt.) Etc. But these guys decide to run around like mad men? Why are they looting off of ATL?

[indeedproceed]

redacted - see post two up for the whole thing

Good write up I agree with most of your points, something just is not clicking in the show for me. I think the danger seems a bit phoney and the out seems to hard to get.

The world is very dangerous, but a bit too silly dangerous. I mean the zombies basically launched a sneak attack on all fronts on the camp, but cannot open a door. Some of their contact with zombies is absolutely comical. Atlanta is surrounded by suburbs, no matter how much looting there was - there would be relatively close, well supplied towns to go to, that are also not over run with zombies (especially since everyone went to ATL.) Also the zombies are attracted to smell and loud noises, maybe movement too - which are plausible given the virus taking over the host lower brain. But there are also easy ways to conceal smell and eliminate loud noises. They could trap live animals and set them up in the middle of town with some loud noises to draw in all the zombies, then blow up all the zombies that come in (or just have a zombie hunt.) Etc. But these guys decide to run around like mad men? Why are they looting off of ATL?

Exactly..there are like..a million ways to problem solve for this..but they're apparently limited to one small part of Atlanta that doesn't have jack. And, in the woods there are ninja zombies.

[dlpin]

First, let me say that I agree with some of IndeedProceed's points. The zombie genre is sort of divided into two sorts of zombie stories: the dumb, slow moving zombie that takes years to overtake the world (see the Romero series) and the fast, ultra brutal zombies who take over places quickly. In this series we have the slow moving, dumb zombies take over everything in a matter of weeks, which is a bit unexplained.


But my main problem with the series so far has been the very shoddy writing. Previous plot points are completely ignored without a second thought. There are many such problems to recall them all here, but let me just point out a recent, and pretty egregious one in my opinion.

So we spent most of the 5th episode on the "CDC or fort benning" decision. Lots of heated exchanges and all that over it. And so they decide to go to the CDC. Only they get there and everything is deserted. No big deal, right? Just turn around and head for fort benning, right? Except that apparently they were low on gas and couldn't make it to fort benning anymore. So that was the major point of tension at the end of the fifth episode. Shane blames Rick for taking them there, condemning them and all that. Here's why this bothers me: if they almost ran out of gas driving to the cdc from their location at the outskirts of Atlanta (a distance that rick and others jogged in a previous episode), how were they even considering the much longer drive to fort benning to begin with? In other words, the writers wrote a pretty big plot hole just to drum up the drama for the "cdc or fort benning" decision, and later for the deserted cdc reveal.

Just like the whole "grenade" fiasco. So they spent the entire second episode looking for a way of producing a loud enough noise to draw the zombies away from that particular building they were in, and Rick had a grenade in his pocket? One he forgot about as he put his clothes in the laundry load?