This week's The Walking Dead (spoilers)

[FlowerChild]

Just finished watching it, and for pete's sake man, isn't submitting a script that has a flashback within a flashback, that also contains a bunch of flashbacks, an automatic "F" in any self-respecting screen-writing class? :P

Enough with the gods damned flashbacks already! At this rate dinosaurs are going to be roaming the earth within a few episodes.

[Larmantine]

Yeah, I have to agree. Though I've been wondering how the cops got Carol there, this episode wasn't really that interesting, as the last one was. And the unnecessary flashbacks felt like they just didn't know how to stretch the time of the episode. In last week's episode the flashbacks about Abraham at least told us something new.

I hope that the next one will be much better, otherwise I'm gonna lose faith in The Walking Dead once again.

[FlowerChild]

Yeah, I have to agree. Though I've been wondering how the cops got Carol there, this episode wasn't really that interesting, as the last one was.

Yeah, I enjoyed the previous one quite a bit, and thought the season premier was awesome. That scene with the killing-trough in the warehouse was a great way to kick it off. I was beginning to get a little sick of it at the end of the previous season, but was quite hopeful they had turned things around when this one began.

My one objection to that first scene though was that I really think they should have killed off a main character. When I saw how they had arranged them in front of the trough, and saw the two unknown "red shirts" on the right, I immediately knew which end they were going to start killing people from, which took something away from the scene. If they had ended it by killing Glen, especially after the false starts, it would have seriously fucked with audience expectations and turned it into art IMO.

I think that's one thing that's begun to bother me overall about the show really. "Life is cheap" is pretty much a central ingredient in zombie fiction. The show started out well in that area with main characters dying off left and right, but as it's progressed, the writers seem to have become overly attached to their creations.

They still die occasionally, but I tend to wince for example whenever a gun fight breaks out as the level of inaccuracy of the weapons is bordering on the level of the old GI Joe cartoons. Bullets fly everywhere, but nobody seems to be able to shoot straight where the main characters are concerned, and you just know that they're predestined to survive turning such scenes into filler that do nothing to progress to plot.

I guess what really bugs me there is that when they do decide to kill someone now they turn it into this big dramatic event. That takes something away from the overall sense of brutality of the environment and sends the message that these people are somehow important, which again, is very counter to that "life is cheap" feeling.

And the unnecessary flashbacks felt like they just didn't know how to stretch the time of the episode. In last week's episode the flashbacks about Abraham at least told us something new.

Well, the main thing that bugged me was that the previous episode began as a flashback to what previously happened to a character when they showed up unexpectedly in the main timeline. Then, this episode began as a flashback within that flashback when another character showed up unexpectedly at the end of the previous episode/flashback.

It gave the episode a big "one step forward, two steps back" sensation to it where I found myself thinking "get on with it already". This kind of thing would be kinda cool in Doctor Who or what have you, where you expect them to fuck around with the timeline, but it felt way out of place here.

The sprinkling of flashbacks within the flashback within the flashback was only the icing on the cake that had me exclaim "oh...come on!" :)

I hope that the next one will be much better, otherwise I'm gonna lose faith in The Walking Dead once again.

Right there with you on that. It's one of my favorite shows, but that's rapidly becoming in title only.

[kjbrona]

Yeah, I enjoyed the previous one quite a bit, and thought the season premier was awesome. That scene with the killing-trough in the warehouse was a great way to kick it off. I was beginning to get a little sick of it at the end of the previous season, but was quite hopeful they had turned things around when this one began.

FYI - In the first episode this season .. the first guy that was killed at the trough was Sam. He was the guy with his wife that Rick & Carol met and then lost right before Rick told Carol she had to leave the group. They found the guys wife but they didn't find him.

Since the episode had must to do with Carol, there had to be flashbacks. I was expecting more of maybe some gruesome horrible things she might have had to do to survive while she was separated from the group, not flashbacks of stuff we already knew.
Overall I am still enjoying the series very much.

[FlowerChild]

Since the episode had must to do with Carol, there had to be flashbacks.

Sure, and flashbacks are fine. However, when they occur within flashbacks which are then in turn part of other flashbacks, it tends to be a bit much.

Her whole story took place in a flashback, which took place in the flashback of the girl in the hospital. Whatever her name is...old beheaded amputee's daughter chick. Did I ever mention I'm terrible with names? :)

On the subject of Carol though (I wouldn't have remembered her name either if it hadn't appeared above), what the hell was up with that scene where she wants to get into the van teetering on the overpass instead of crossbow guy because she doesn't weigh as much, he refuses, and then she follows him right in adding her weight on top? At first I thought she was trying to counter balance the back, then she follows him straight into the front like the conversation a few seconds earlier never took place.

Unless I missed something major, there are some major writing lapses going on.

[Gilberreke]

As I mentioned before, I gave up on the series rapidly. The comics are definitely way more brutal. For example, any shooting scene in the comic and you can be sure at least two of the main characters at that point will die, if not all of them (there's a shooting scene in the comics that kills off the entire cast, except for two people at some point). The comics are really good in establishing the whole "life is cheap" and "humans are the real monsters".

[Larmantine]

As I mentioned before, I gave up on the series rapidly. The comics are definitely way more brutal. For example, any shooting scene in the comic and you can be sure at least two of the main characters at that point will die, if not all of them (there's a shooting scene in the comics that kills off the entire cast, except for two people at some point). The comics are really good in establishing the whole "life is cheap" and "humans are the real monsters".

The problem with the comics though is that they spoil everything for me. I already didn't have a spine and took a look at the future of the TWD universe. Same thing was with Game of Thrones. After seeing the first two seasons I was like "Ermahgerd, dis is like ze greatest show evur" while waiting for the third one I read a couple of the books and the fourth season wasn't even fun to watch because I already knew who and how is gonna die.

Another thing that bugs me about TWD is that nothing much is known about the about the causes of the zombies and wether it is possible to stop it and wether it will stop. When Eugene was first introduced I really liked the idea, gave me the feeling that we could see a resolution at some point. Aaand it was gone. I dunno, that's just how I feel about it, because the petty running, communities falling apart, bandit fighting and scavenging is already getting old. I guess I'm just more interested in the big picture.

[EpicAaron]

Would you guys recommend getting back into the show? I gave up in a frustrated huff after season four ended.
It just seemed too obvious when characters would die (and more importantly, who definitely wouldn't die). The pacing has never felt the same since season two, and the zombie action scenes have either grown incredibly stale or horribly unrealistic feeling.

Granted, I finally started watching Breaking Bad at that point, so that show may have taken away from my enjoyment of The Walking Dead.

[FlowerChild]

Would you guys recommend getting back into the show?

Not really, no. I'm getting closer to the point where I give up on it myself.

My overall obsession with zombie fiction is really the only thing keeping me holding on here. It still remains one of the best quality examples of that ever put on film (I suspect it's higher budget than the vast majority of zombie movies, that "World War Z" fiasco being the one exception I can think of), so it's a difficult thing to let go of for me, even if I probably already would have ditched it had it been in another genre.

Granted, I'm becoming more and more of a cynical old fart with each passing year, where, for example, I can't stand watching superhero stuff at all anymore, so experience may vary.