Walking Dead Week 2, Comments?

[Trooperdan]

One thing that seems odd to me; given the situation, wouldn't every adult be carrying a weapon 100 percent of the time? Those guys in the encampment going into the forest, alone, unarmed...? Even for a little lovin;, I think they would be armed with more than Viagra!

 

[sigp220.45]

I finally watched the second episode last night, and I thought it was very good. I'm definitely in for the whole series.

Two things are bothering me, though. Why don't they call them zombies? Walkers and geeks? Come on - this isn't set in an alternate universe where George Romero was never born.

Also, I agree with the Trooperdan - I think this far into the zombie apocalypse every living human would be carrying two guns, a pile of ammo, and be dressed in long sleeved leather garb.

Still, I'm in for the long haul.

 

[snake charmer]

I can't wait for episode #3.

 

[MR .44 Spl]

I like it, but as with all things TV there are couple of items that bug me.

Zombies can climb a fence, but they can't climb a ladder?

The make-up is really good, but the blood splatter effects look like they were done with the cheapest computer graphics program they could buy. I've seen stuff on youtube that looks more realistic.

There were a couple of other things that I can't think of right now. Overall though it's pretty good, and I'll watch it again next week. Even my wife, who is no zombie movie fan, thinks it's pretty well done.

 

[Iowahunter]

Thumbs up in my house also.
I have to agree that most of the cable shows beat the regular network shows. I enjoy In Plain Sight, Burn Notice, and a couple on TNT .. Leverage and Dark Blue and Justified on FX
I work 2nd shift so I have to record most of them but, no comercials that way!!

 

[Wayne02]

Pretty good show, beats most other things on the tube these days.

I think they missed the boat a bit with the casting of the main character. He has absolutely no mo-jo and his acting skills seem pretty lame. I hope the black guy who staid behind with his son will become more front and center as the plot matures. He is a good actor and has been in some other doomer movies/series like Jericho I think it was.

The roll in the grass in episode two was pretty hot, and the series will need elements like this if it is to survive more than a couple years. The whole shoot-the-zombies-dead story line is only going to be good for so long, and there will need to be significant amounts of drama between the humans to keep the story interesting.

 

[Trooperdan]

Gonna get REAL interesting when he finds his partner and ex-wife! Want to bet his partner told the wife, "Nope, he's dead. let's go!"?

 

[GatorFarmer]

Two things are bothering me, though. Why don't they call them zombies? Walkers and geeks? Come on - this isn't set in an alternate universe where George Romero was never born.

Also, I agree with the Trooperdan - I think this far into the zombie apocalypse every living human would be carrying two guns, a pile of ammo, and be dressed in long sleeved leather garb.

There's actually a bit of realism lurking in both of those presentations.

People tend to be a self conscious group. They also tend to adopt whatever descriptions becomes popular in the media, or in a general area. It'd be quite possible that in reality people, particularly in the media when such was reported on, would feel foolish using the term "zombie" or think that such would lead the topic to not be taken seriously. The quasi official sounding term is revenant in some fiction. Though, for those interested, "real" zombies turn up after most plagues. They certainly were around in the form of some of the survivors of the 1918 flu pandemic - people who recovered, but then later lapsed into a zombie like state. None of them started eating people, that we know of, but it happened.

More violent reports, of people being eaten by the diseased, emerged from the Dark and Middle Ages, particularly around the Black Death and gave birth to the story of the vampire. All that is another story for another day.

Suffice to say that CNN wouldn't use the "z" word in describing such if it happened. It'd be somehow uncool, and also lead to an even greater sense of horror. Instead people would likely try to think up new names for the enemy.

In military circles such would likely be dubbed "(expletive)tards", or at least that crops up in half tongue in cheek PMC and military drills related to such. And yes, there are some.

We also don't know if George A Romero lived in this universe or not. Since it is apparently present day, and there are no zombies outside, it's obviously a different universe in some ways being portrayed.

The issue of guns is interesting, and is probably accurate. What we tend to forget is the polling data in the United States breaks down to something like 1/3 of all households having a firearm, give or take. That's a household, not a person. People that own guns tend to have a bunch, but many people only have one or two kicking around and might not have much ammo. Remember the recent ammo panic and how hard it became to get ammo? Imagine that a thousand times worse.

You'd have many people not having a gun to start with, new guns unable to be purchased for any sum of money, limited stocks of ammo being exhausted, and other factors.

Thus Jericho man having his snubby was probably his character having what he started with. Others shown with guns, even at the encampment are Shane, the friend who was with the wife, wearing what looks like his duty belt and pistol, the guy with the hat standing watch with a scoped hunting rifle, and the redneck who makes a point of the scoped rifle in his hands being "my gun". (He also has a Smith and Wesson .45 auto.) The only other gun in that group belongs to the blonde from the Mist, a 9mm that she also says was hers, a gift.

The redneck is also chastised about "wasting ammo that we don't have".

Whatever happened apparently happened everywhere and all at once. In the comic, Comaguy was out for a month. With a disease model of transmission, it wouldn't have spread everywhere so fast. Thus there is some other cause, perhaps supernatural at work.

Also if everyone is fleeing willy nilly in panic - likely the real killer and destroyer of civilization, since zombies could be contained - many people will end up on foot. Rifles and shotguns, and ammo, are heavy. A person can only carry so much. Even in a vehicle, if time pressures were on, it's unlikely that many people would cram all their gun collection in their hatchback. Other times firearms in a "household" might be granpa's old Model 12 Winchester with a dozen decaying paper hulled rounds purchased in 1956.

I like it, but as with all things TV there are couple of items that bug me.

Zombies can climb a fence, but they can't climb a ladder?

The make-up is really good, but the blood splatter effects look like they were done with the cheapest computer graphics program they could buy. I've seen stuff on youtube that looks more realistic.
.

This actually makes sense on both parts. Note that the series is rated TV14, and not TVMA, and even with the blood being the way that it is, they still have to have the warning running before each episode. For reasons of advertising - i.e. those car ads with zombies in the show - it had to be kept to TV14. Thus the blood effects were deliberately done in a manner other than realistic in order to keep this rating.

Regarding zombie capabilities, the level of brain damage apparently varies. Some retain memories and the ability to use simple tools. The wife of Jerichoman found her way back to the house and knew how to turn a door knob. One of the zombies that broke into the department store was using a large rock to bash the window. They can also be seen apparently asleep - in the front yard, on a bus, etc. And the little girl picked up her teddy bear.

Something apparently reanimates part of the brain. To some degree body functions of a crude level are retained - hence the zombies that rest, remember fragments, and their need to digest living tissue. They probably even need to breathe. Rather than thinking of them as dead, it would be more akin to someone with Alzheimers or retardation, and the level of this would vary. It would even be arguable whether the zombies were suffering per se or would want to be put down.

 

[bgrafsr]

Haven't seen one episode and don't intend to. Just more junk on the boob tube.

 

[J. W.]

I enjoyed it and will continue to watch. I just hope the sub-plot with hs wife and partner canoodling doesn't turn the show into a soap opera. My girlfriend thinks they were fooling around before the zombie apocolypse happened and that it will come out in later episodes.

One thing I noticed and thought odd was that the zombies can't climb a ladder, but they can climb a fence...

 

[Gun Smoke]

Watched episode 1 last night on comcast command cable and l really liked it...I thought it might be stupid or corny but it wasn't at all...I like the plot and the acting was pretty good along with all the realistic zombie head shots although I wish the main character would use a mod 629 classic and not a colt python but it's cool too....I try to think of the zombies as having a disease and it seems more realistic to me that way...If we ever had terrorist plot to plant small pox in a major city it would spread like wildfire and might be the same kind of scenairo but real...I think this will be my favorite show for now and I will watch episode 2 tonight...Thanks for turning me on to the show because it's not one I would watched otherwise...

 

[Rule 303]

I think that I've seen some of the gals I had dates with in HS and College walking in this series.

Rule 303