Fear the Walking Dead...or lack there of....

I forced myself to endure the short first season of FTWD. Each episode i told myself, okay this is the one it will start to get good. Sadly that "Good" Episode only arose as the season finale. Mainly because Travis got to live every mans dream...being the one who gets to shoot their ex wife in the head...due to a zombie bite.

I thought awesome, next season is going to be great, i can feel it!.
I watched the premier and unfortunately still felt that the characters lacked any substance. One of the leads - Travis, played by Cliff Curtis. is my biggest let down. Perhaps its because ive seen this man portray Pablo Escobar in the movie Blow, as a cold blooded killer. Then in FTWD, he's the complete opposite - a total pansy.
I have attempted to watch every episode this season, still holding onto that hope that there will be some exceptional character development that will turn it all around for me. But still no luck...mainly because theres nothing happening on screen that really grabs me and makes me want to continue watching the episode. With the exception of the season 2 premier, i end up turning the tv off 30 minutes into the show, and call it a night.

The only 2 characters that I find remotely interesting are the junky Nick, because he has survival skills and seems fearless. An the hot sister, Alicia because i find her very attractive.

How about you ATS, what are your thoughts on FTWD?
Do you enjoy it an maybe ive been to hard on the show so far?
Or do you agree, that this is just a money grab, riding the coat tails of our beloved The Walking Dead?

Yah, beat the genre into the ground. It was just a movie, guys. As much as the gubment psyop wants you thinking your neighbors are all zombies and all, it was just a movie. Can't ever get that original fear back.

Tube Trailer

Yeah they screwed the pooch with FTWD, it had potential but I dont pay any mind to it anymore. It kind of reminds me of a video game called dead island always on fetch me this quests with the only obstacles being zombies.

a reply to: Macenroe82

Agreed. Just capitalising on the success of the original.

Kind of understandable this one takes a while to get going as it's set at the very onset of the zombie apocalypse instead of the middle like the original.

And now just last night, a gay love affair has been introduced.

Not sure where that's leading us or what it has to do with zombies. I'll hang in a bit longer since TWD takes a 6 month hiatus mid-season.

You have a bunch of very interesting characters on that show that aren't being used to their fullest.

Strand was interesting from the beginning. However until last nites show that gave you some background on him. He was just sorta spinning his wheels.

Nick is another well acted character. Again the buildup is slow. But since he's been going out and sort of mirroring the zombies his character is growing.

Daniel Salazar can be an amazing character. The guy is an, at least in my opinion, ex death squad torturer. I think he could far more interesting than he already is.

Both shows have me in a funk. And i'm getting a bit tired of them both.

I pretty much feel exactly the way you do Macenroe82. Same exact thing, I endured it, and the finale was good, leaving me with hope. I haven't even started the new season yet, but from all indications, looks like it will be the last one.

I just can't get into any of these characters.

The main guy, is just....bleh....
Main gal is OK, as is the junkie kid.
Sure, the daughter is cute, but boring.

I think part of it is just that they were SO stupid the first season.

From the previews, they seem to be on land. Why? Surely the guy had the yacht stocked well..... Guess I'll see.

They messed this up bad. Had the perfect opportunity to show the gradual decline of civilisation and they just skipped over it throughout the course of like 3 episodes so now we're just watching them go from place to place on a boat.

None of the characters are likeable, most of them are not even interesting. The Hispanic kid is just annoying beyond belief.

I never liked the walking dead. They never said what caused the sh*t so there is no resolution ever. Just wander, shoot zombies, wander meet strangers, strangers turn out to be bad, shoot strangers, shoot more zombies, repeat.

Also wtf is up with being able to behind the back headshot zombies from 150 feet away while running but cant hit stationary human targets for crap.

a reply to: Gazrok

Have to agree with most of the comments here. As a big (but fading) fan of the original series, I saw a lot of potential in the first season with the story of how everything fell apart and got to the point where the original series began. This was a big disappointment for me because half of season one involved them being quarantined in their neighborhood with little info about what was going on in the outside world.

Then, at the end of Season one, they were headed to the ship and I thought it had interesting opportunities, but so far, it has been just a bunch of nonsense at sea and already at least one full episode of boat repairs. Essentially, its the Herschel's farm season, but on a boat. They are definitely running out of time to save this show. Out of hope, I have given it way more of a chance than I would if it had not been connected to TWD.

I've always been a big fan of the genre before it went mainstream. My main interest has always been around how people survive in the beginning and the post apocalyptic world thereafter. Walking Dead does a decent job on the post apocalyptic angle. However, I don't think FTWD is off to a good start showing how things fall apart.

The characters simply are not likable and you don't feel invested in them. If any of them died, no one would care.

I'll watch it because quite frankly there isn't much else worth watching on TV these days, but I really don't think they are doing this show justice. They really could have had all kinds of stories in various cities showing survival kind of like those CSI shows.

a reply to: Slave2theTruth

You said it perfectly! this season is in compare to the farm season lol.

Im glad to see im not the only one feeling this way about the show.
I was hoping to see more FEMA camp style stuff. Or the producers taking it from a different angle and showing us how the world fell, not just L.A from the point of view of a handful in the suburbs, getting to live in their houses.
There was so much potential...but greed got in the way.
Make shows with the same name and the idiots will watch.

And ya, i have to admit, Strand was pretty interesting at first. But it seems to wash away as soon as him and Nick got out of the camp.

From what i caught over the past few episodes, theres already Pirates out on the sea's?
People are already so desperate as to murder and rob from each other.
Unfortunately, i have a feeling the real world would be similar if faced with the same events lol

I'm a big fan of TWD and my thoughts on FTWD were initially, "Awesome, now there will be another show in the franchise to watch after the end of TWD season!"

Unfortunately, the characters are meh so what might otherwise be chalked up to acceptable character development becomes tediously slow pacing. Travis and Madison have no chemistry at all. Travis's son is super annoying and Madison's daughter only slightly less so. Daniel is unlikable but he's not exactly an antagonist. So far the most interesting characters are Nick, Strand and Alex.

Another problem is that coming from watching TWD, we're already so far down the road of watching characters evolving from feckless innocents into hardened survivors that it's frustrating watching a new set of people trying to come to grips with the new world in which they've found themselves and doing dumb things.

I haven't watched last night's episode yet but hopefully this show takes a different direction because if not, I can't see investing the time in watching it beyond this season.

a reply to: Macenroe82

If the comparison holds, the upside is that next season might be better.

a reply to: Macenroe82

I did like FTWD's first season. Now, I find myself falling asleep.

They never said what caused the sh*t so there is no resolution ever.

Actually, they did. There's an episode in TWD where they go to the CDC in Atlanta. There, a lone survivor basically explains about the virus, etc. Without outright saying it, we can pretty much deduce the virus was manmade and got away from us.

I was really looking forward to the "slow burn" of watching the early stages of the zombie problem. While the characters sucked, the show did a good job of this in the first few episodes. Thing is though, it's something that DIDN'T have to involve a lot of character development. In THIS case, it actually would have been better not to have, and shown more of the events unfolding. The commercials (like in the plane, etc.) were actually better, and these vignettes would have made for a better show, at least initially.

I wanted to see people looking out of a plane window as the city blacked out.

I wanted to see huge traffic jams.

I wanted to see the military struggle with the problem, the psychological effect of fighting the undead.

I wanted to see isolated cases give way to full blown outbreaks.

I wanted to see conspiracy sites show the real story, but be dismissed by the media until it was too late.

Etc., etc.

We got a taste of this, but it should have been the main course...not this stupid dysfunctional family that doesn't have a single character we can root for. As a viewer, I knew from day 1 this cast and the characters didn't click. How could the producers be so blind?

a reply to: Gazrok

The CDC episode didn't explain anything like that. I never deduced the whatever it is to be manmade either. The scientist said they started studying it after people started coming down with it and everyone on earth has it. I deduced it to be something ominous outside man kinds control.

originally posted by: Brotherman
a reply to: Gazrok

The CDC episode didn't explain anything like that. I never deduced the whatever it is to be manmade either. The scientist said they started studying it after people started coming down with it and everyone on earth has it. I deduced it to be something ominous outside man kinds control.

Correct. The creators of the Walking Dead purposely leave the cause vague because it really isn't relevant to the story. The zombies are just the back drop to the character struggles. If you think too hard about it, you realize that Zombies aren't possible (at least in the sense of the Walking Dead type) so unnecessarily trying to detail the cause is just a distraction. Notice they never use the word "zombies" in the show.

originally posted by: Edumakated

originally posted by: Brotherman
a reply to: Gazrok

The CDC episode didn't explain anything like that. I never deduced the whatever it is to be manmade either. The scientist said they started studying it after people started coming down with it and everyone on earth has it. I deduced it to be something ominous outside man kinds control.

Correct. The creators of the Walking Dead purposely leave the cause vague because it really isn't relevant to the story. The zombies are just the back drop to the character struggles. If you think too hard about it, you realize that Zombies aren't possible (at least in the sense of the Walking Dead type) so unnecessarily trying to detail the cause is just a distraction. Notice they never use the word "zombies" in the show.

Im very familiar with the vernacular, it is an interesting out look on humanity. I appreciate it for this, I love the artistry and the TV show is the side show.

I think AMC really dropped the ball with FTWD.

The whole idea of the series was to show the initial outbreak of the zombie apocalypse. The first 2 episodes you seen a few people getting sick and riots starting... then the show suddenly skips ahead like 2 weeks and they are sitting in a safe zone doing nothing.

What happened to the MILLIONS of people in Los Angeles? Where did they all go in such a short period of time?

I had higher hopes for season 2, then right at the beginning they decide to give the only outlet of social media... the radio... to the teenage girl. And guess what? Within 5 minutes she finds a boy she likes! But of course he's a bad guy because 9/10 people in TWD universe are bad guys.

I'm 50/50 with the show right now, I might keep watching it when I'm absolutely bored and there is nothing else to watch.