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Author Topic: The Walking Dead: The TV Show  (Read 9496 times)

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Büge

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Re: The Walking Dead: The TV Show
« Reply #40 on: November 23, 2010, 03:15:10 PM »

Unclear about one thing, though: Why don't cellphones work? Why do they have absolutely no forms of communication, outside of shitty walkie talkies and police radios?

I'm pretty sure cellphone networks require infrastructure and maintenance, whereas police band and walkie talkies are just short-distance two-way radios.
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Spaco

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Re: The Walking Dead: The TV Show
« Reply #41 on: November 23, 2010, 03:26:25 PM »

Well yeah, but do power plants and cellphone towers shut down the minute humans stop babysitting them? It's not like the zombies would disable them, so I wonder how long it'd take for them to go offline without maintenance. How long is TWD supposed to be after the zombie apocalypse? And how is it the military lost the fight with tanks and whatnot, but a few jackasses with shotguns are just fine? What about radios? Surely someone would be broadcasting something as far as what's going on.

And as far as elitist DVR smarmy-ness goes, I suppose I'm more elitist in the fact that I rarely watch TV, and TWD is one of those few shows I'll bother watching regularly for.
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Mongrel

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Re: The Walking Dead: The TV Show
« Reply #42 on: November 23, 2010, 04:12:26 PM »

Well, one of the overriding themes of just about every zombie story ever is that sooner or later the zombies get into everything and that there's never any safe place (which is really rather silly, but that's another question entirely and was already discussed above), so even large complexes are probably all fucked up.
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Büge

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Re: The Walking Dead: The TV Show
« Reply #43 on: November 23, 2010, 06:20:28 PM »

Well yeah, but do power plants and cellphone towers shut down the minute humans stop babysitting them? It's not like the zombies would disable them, so I wonder how long it'd take for them to go offline without maintenance.

According to the documentary Life After People, it only takes a few days for just about every power plant to shut down. At most, you're looking at a couple of weeks before perpetual blackout, except for maybe hydroelectric dams.
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Eponymous Bosch

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Re: The Walking Dead: The TV Show
« Reply #44 on: November 23, 2010, 08:21:15 PM »

I only just saw the first episode, so I'm really behind, but I enjoyed it a lot.  At first it seemed like it was going over the same ground, but I knew I was really going to like this series when Rick goes back for the half-a-zombie, says "I'm sorry this happened to you" and then puts her out of her misery.  That was really great.  I can't wait to see where this all goes.

That really wasn't a very useful post...  Um, but I like the show!
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Thad

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Re: The Walking Dead: The TV Show
« Reply #45 on: November 23, 2010, 09:48:59 PM »

All righty, episode 4!  This is the one that has diverged most significantly from the comic, with really only the closing scene having any resemblance to the source material.  Makes sense given that Kirkman wrote this one; presumably he'd rather write a new story than just adapt something he already wrote.

I feel many of the characters are overly exaggerated

Tangent: I hate the phrase "overly exaggerated".  As opposed to what, under-exaggerated?

especially the rednecks and the cholos in ep4.

Definitely over-the-top.  Merle's monologue at the beginning of ep 3 was pretty great, though, and Daryl's become a bit more interesting.  He's not just blind, unfocused rage; he's got the rage part going but he's also a damn fine tracker and good with that crossbow.  While it still doesn't make any sense that anyone would want to bring Merle on a supply mission into the city, it's becoming clear why they'd keep Daryl around even if he's not the most likable guy.

As for the eponymous vatos (and BTW, that would be a great name for a band), yeah, they were ridiculously over-the-top and frankly a pretty uncomfortable racial stereotype -- but I think the payoff worked even if it was a little hokey.  [spoiler]Of COURSE they'd be walking stereotypes if they were really a nurse and a janitor PLAYING at being gangsters.[/spoiler]

Spoilers for both the episode and the comic: [spoiler]In the comic, everybody has the virus; you don't have to get bitten to become a zombie, that just makes it happen faster.  When you die, you turn, bite or no bite.  So that raises the question of...what about the old folks' home?  Sooner or later somebody's going to die of old age or sickness.  You'd think that would have happened by now and, if the show followed the same rules as the comic, the people at the hospital would know that everybody inevitably becomes a zombie.  But there's no mention of it.[/spoiler]  So it could be that the rules operate differently in the show than the comic, or the omission could just be one of those things where we're supposed to suspend disbelief for the sake of drama.  More on that in a bit.

Anyway, the existence of another group of survivors changes things pretty significantly from the status quo in the comic when [spoiler]the camp was compromised[/spoiler].  While I expect they'll ultimately follow the same basic path the comic did, I expect the subject will come up again.

Also, that opening scene between the two sisters in the boat was the worst part of the series with regard to acting and dialogue, as far as I'm concerned.

The conversation was a bit cute but I didn't think the acting was bad at all.

The confrontation with the cholos seemed pretty ridiculous too, I felt.

Sure, but as I said above, the later scenes go a long way to explaining why.

I do, however, really like the concept that, even in such a zombie-plagued area, the real dangers the characters have to worry about are from their own living kind. The deterioration of societal structure is bringing out the worst in people, and it makes for good drama.

Exactly.  As I've said, it's not a story about zombies, it's a story about the collapse of civilization and what it does to the survivors.  Zombies are monsters, but there are much worse monsters out there.

[spoiler]And of course we haven't met any of them yet -- this was all just a big misunderstanding.  Sure, the show's had a crazy racist or two and a wife-beater, but that's tip of the iceberg.[/spoiler]

Unclear about one thing, though: Why don't cellphones work? Why do they have absolutely no forms of communication, outside of shitty walkie talkies and police radios?

Not sure about Buge's comment on power plants but it makes sense.  They DO require fuel; it's not as if they're fully automated.

Leaving that aside, I don't have experience running a cellular network but I do have experience running a data network, and it often couldn't last the weekend without me coming in to keep everything running.

How long is TWD supposed to be after the zombie apocalypse?

Deliberately ambiguous, but couldn't be much more than a month.

And how is it the military lost the fight with tanks and whatnot, but a few jackasses with shotguns are just fine?

Well, they're not, really.  I suppose the show's got a pretty light bodycount so far, all things considered, but expect that to change soon.  What we're looking at is a couple of dozen stragglers who've survived the death of a city of millions -- and I wouldn't count on most of them hanging around for very long either.

What about radios? Surely someone would be broadcasting something as far as what's going on.

Maybe there are in some regions, but I doubt there's anybody at a major radio station.  People broadcasting out of their basements won't have much range.

But on some level, there IS a lot of stuff you have to eventually handwave on.  Rick's coma is the first example.  There's only one region of the human body that will put you in a coma if you're shot in it, and that's the brain.  Leaving that aside, when he woke up he'd have a catheter in him, and assuming the hospital staff had been gone for long he'd be malnourished and lying in his own feces.  And that's the first ten minutes of the show.

You gotta handwave on some stuff for dramatic effect.  A recent lettercol in the comic had a reader wondering why they don't know the exact dates and have to keep track on pieces of paper, given that digital watch batteries last for years and there's gotta be SOMEBODY in a cast this size who has one.  Kirkman basically responded, "Yeah, I could come up with some sort of explanation for that, but you're right, the truth is I fucked up and forgot digital watches had dates on them."

AN OPEN LETTER TO PEOPLE WHO DO NOT HAVE DVR

How are things back there in 1999?  It was a pretty good year, if I remember, so I hope you're enjoying it!  I'm sure you've got a lot of questions for me since I live in the future and all, but I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise!

Pff, you still subscribe to cable TV?  Enjoy paying for all those channels you don't watch so you can sit through commercials, old man.
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Ted Belmont

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Re: The Walking Dead: The TV Show
« Reply #46 on: November 29, 2010, 07:35:54 PM »

Wow. That was a hell of a departure from the comic's storyline.
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Thad

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Re: The Walking Dead: The TV Show
« Reply #47 on: November 30, 2010, 08:58:16 AM »

Indeed.  I thought it worked well, except for the ridiculous giant fireball.

A particularly nice bit of misdirection for the comic fans in that (comic spoilers) [spoiler]Rick and Shane's confrontation in the forest did NOT end with Shane dead[/spoiler], but I still think we're bound to see it next week.

Further prediction: [spoiler]CDC guy kills a redshirt[/spoiler].

CBR also notes that this ep gives us our least ambiguous (but still pretty ambiguous) timeline to date: 194 days since "Wildfire" was declared, 63 since it went global.  The latter number jibes roughly with what I expected, though it does serve to further highlight the ridiculousness of Rick's coma.
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Mongrel

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Re: The Walking Dead: The TV Show
« Reply #48 on: December 03, 2010, 07:36:56 PM »

Uh, I haven't watched the TV show yet, but I thought you guys might want to know about this: Frank Darabont has fired the entire writing staff and plans to replace them with freelancers.

Er.... :mikey:

My condolences, guys.
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Ocksi

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Re: The Walking Dead: The TV Show
« Reply #49 on: December 04, 2010, 01:19:57 AM »

eh.

Kirkman's still in charge.
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Niku

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Re: The Walking Dead: The TV Show
« Reply #50 on: December 04, 2010, 09:39:17 AM »

Yeah, honestly so far the writing (at least the dialogue) has not been the show's greatest strength.  This might shake out for the better.
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Royal☭

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Re: The Walking Dead: The TV Show
« Reply #51 on: December 04, 2010, 10:18:46 AM »

As long as they can avoid Easily Hated Strawman Stereotype #235-B for the foreseeable future, I don't much care.

Thad

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Re: The Walking Dead: The TV Show
« Reply #52 on: December 04, 2010, 10:21:57 PM »

So far all we know for sure is that the co-executive producer is off the show.  Kirkman posted a non-clarification clarification saying the story's been misreported but not going into any more detail than that.

That's the reason I hadn't mentioned it up to this point -- it's pretty much just ambiguous gossip right now.
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Thad

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Re: The Walking Dead: The TV Show
« Reply #53 on: December 06, 2010, 08:52:21 PM »

Finale, whoo!

So, okay, how'd I do?

Not well!

And that I like.  Nice being a longtime fan and still being surprised.

What's less nice is the episode's ludicrous premise.  What's more nice is that they managed to pull it off with some great damn acting.

On the premise: [spoiler]So okay, they're running out of power.  In a giant building with all the lights on and the scientist playing videos on a 64" goddamn TV.  I mean, okay, maybe he'd been keeping everything low until then, and knew he'd only lose a little bit of time by rolling out the red carpet for his guests and hell, they were all doomed anyway.  And the bank of servers crunching all those numbers, and the AC to keep them all cool, would certainly use more juice than the lights or bigscreen TV.  So you can handwave some of that shit.

But then you get the talking computer, and, for fuck's sake, red countdown to giant explosion that clearly cannot possibly correspond to the actual real-time process of getting back up to the first floor, out of the building, and back to the RV with time to spare.[/spoiler]  If Batman: The Brave and the Bold had done this, it would have been a hilarious sendup of genre cliches.  But here they play it straight.  And yes, I know it's a show about a zombie apocalypse, but sometimes it's harder to suspend disbelief than others.

On to the good: great fucking cast, firing on all cylinders.  Rick's great, Jenner's great, Shane's sympathetic, still kind of a bastard but not as much of a bastard as he could be, Daryl's become my favorite original character on the show, and Dale and Andrea really anchor the whole thing; the show's done a great job of making their relationship work in a much shorter time than the comic had to do it in.

So for all that was :facepalm: about the episode, it was still pretty damn good.

Other thoughts?

[spoiler]Still no Merle.  I would have bet that he'd have found Rick's map and followed them.

While I was wrong about Jenner killing people to experiment on, I was right about them being forced out of the building by the end of the episode.  The story stagnates when it stays in one location for too long.  I expect we'll see the prison eventually, but it won't last nearly as long as it did in the comic.[/spoiler]

And, combined show and comic spoilers follow: [spoiler]Shane still standing.  I thought he might be after last week; the CDC setting didn't really afford the opportunity for him and Rick to have it out.  It's certainly still coming -- and, given that it didn't end up being the climax of season 1, I'm thinking it would start season 2 with a bang.[/spoiler]

All in all, a very satisfying first season.  And hey, just eleven more months 'til season 2!
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BusyZombieLord

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Re: The Walking Dead: The TV Show
« Reply #54 on: December 10, 2010, 08:22:00 PM »

Well yeah, but do power plants and cellphone towers shut down the minute humans stop babysitting them? It's not like the zombies would disable them, so I wonder how long it'd take for them to go offline without maintenance.

According to the documentary Life After People, it only takes a few days for just about every power plant to shut down. At most, you're looking at a couple of weeks before perpetual blackout, except for maybe hydroelectric dams.

I read some where that our water could last for a really long time since in most places the water is gravity or something like that. I have no idea if it is true. I still do things like fill the bath tub if hurricanes of blizzards come my way.

One of my Co-Workers said he heard an interview with kirkman where he said they used the CDC in the story line for the show because one of the producers told him it was in Atlanta and he had no idea when he did the comic originally. He also stated the his biggest complaint about the show was more important characters needed to die.
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Thad

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Re: The Walking Dead: The TV Show
« Reply #55 on: October 17, 2011, 09:00:02 PM »

Well!

Quit a lot of surprises in an episode that bore very little resemblance to any existing comic plot.  Most surprising: Shane trying desperately to do the right thing and actually doing a pretty good job of winning me over.

Spoilers from both show and comic:  [spoiler]Can he actually make good on his plan and take off?  Things certainly don't seem to be building toward a big confrontation between the two of them, and Carl's out of commission and anybody else killing Shane really weakens his death.  I don't expect Andrea will go with him, if he DOES make it out alive; if she does I expect they'll both come back.  Surprised that things are so toxic between her and Dale, though; romance doesn't exactly seem imminent, but I won't rule it out either.[/spoiler]

Also -- what was up with the dead people in cars?  Doesn't really make a lick of sense, and I hope it's explained later rather than just falling through a plothole.  Minor/vague comic spoilers: [spoiler]This also tells us that zombies don't work the same on the TV show.[/spoiler]

All in all, it worked.  The show still makes my pulse race -- and so, for that matter, does the comic, even after I've been reading it for 6 years and it's been running for 8.
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Friday

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Re: The Walking Dead: The TV Show
« Reply #56 on: October 20, 2011, 01:56:51 AM »

[spoiler]Yeah, I was wondering the same damn thing. If everyone has the virus and turns when they die, what is up with the dead people in the cars rather prominently lacking brain injuries? They even show that the tent body isn't a zombie because he shot himself in the head, so... uh?[/spoiler]

On the other hand, it could just work differently than in the comic.
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Friday

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Re: The Walking Dead: The TV Show
« Reply #57 on: November 14, 2011, 04:31:48 AM »

god damn it they keep putting Daryl in SUPER TENSE DANGER SCENES and because I know he's not from the comic he could die at any time and they know I know so they keep doing it goddamn them
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Friday

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Re: The Walking Dead: The TV Show
« Reply #58 on: November 14, 2011, 04:44:03 AM »

OH AN ARROW IS EMBEDDED IN MY BODY GUESS I BETTER PULL IT OUT AND HEADSHOT AN ONCOMING WALKER

and then walk straight into the kitchen and make myself a sandwich
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Thad

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Re: The Walking Dead: The TV Show
« Reply #59 on: February 09, 2012, 10:48:56 AM »

god damn it they keep putting Daryl in SUPER TENSE DANGER SCENES and because I know he's not from the comic he could die at any time and they know I know so they keep doing it goddamn them

Comic and TV spoilers: As of the most recent episode, [spoiler]someone has died who is still alive in the comic.  So I'd say all bets are off.[/spoiler]
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