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chaos0xomega wrote:
Well, TWD (the show) explained that it was a fungal spore infection or whatever that had affected every living human on earth, so theres that...

Citation needed. Which episode?

If you're referring to the Season 1 finale when the CDC Doctor explains his research to Rick, all he can say is [paraphrased]:

"I have no idea what this thing is, but whatever it is, it only reanimates the most primitive parts of the brain and not the parts responsible for human consciousness. The person that a walker used to be, is dead and gone".

chaos0xomega wrote:
Well, TWD (the show) explained that it was a fungal spore infection or whatever that had affected every living human on earth, so theres that...

In the show they know everyone on earth "is affected" by "it", but have zero clue what "it" is, they don't know if its an infection (viral, funal, bacterial, ect) or anything specific, they just know everyone is already affected.


It could be anything at this point, magic, hell being full with the dead coming back, or some zombie making fungus, or super rabies.

Huh, for whatever reason I seem to remember Jenner saying that it was fungal specifically in the CDC episode of season 1 (I believe it was the part where theyre showing the xray or whatever of the dead humans nervous system and brain tissue turning black as the infection kicks into effect), but maybe I'm wrong about that.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Huh, for whatever reason I seem to remember Jenner saying that it was fungal specifically in the CDC episode of season 1 (I believe it was the part where theyre showing the xray or whatever of the dead humans nervous system and brain tissue turning black as the infection kicks into effect), but maybe I'm wrong about that.

No, he said it could be fungal...or microbial...or viral.

And that's not paraphrased.

Ah, I guess I stand corrected. I mean, thats dumb as hell and scientifically a load of bs, but fair enough.

Animated rotting corpses are scientifically a load of BS.

well yes, that too.

Caught up on this episode last night, and have to say that I'm not a fan nor is the wife.

The characters just don't appeal at all to us.

So I managed to see the first 2 episodes of Fear the Walking Dead - doubt I will bother with more.
Not sure why they had to make the main characters so very unlikeable and selfish.....

We get:
Needy drug addict victim guy – so very annoying - another "oh woe is me for my life is so pampered but screw it up and everyone elses"
Neurotic selfish Mother – her son is the only thing in her life – another Lori in the making sadly
Dull not overly bright and well meaning Step Dad – who is happy to ignore murders
his angry teenage son and ex wife - dull

At least the daughter seemed to be at least concerned with other people other than her broken family. Of course her mother stops her helping people being attacked, or her boyfriend

I get that disasters can bring out the worst in people but it can also bring out the best - I liked the S1 episode of Walking Dead when the main cast encounter the armed gangers and it actually turns out they are defending the old people's home.

Been nice to see their story……..

Instead we get the trials of a bunch of wealthy and entitled …………

While I agree that the characters so far aren't all that great...

 Mr Morden wrote:

Instead we get the trials of a bunch of wealthy and entitled …………

...are they showing you a different version over there in the UK?

Long ago I decided that Mr. Morden and I live in different dimensions. Sometimes people have such wildly different opinions on the same thing that alternate universes are the only explanation.

And I can see that this is the case once again.

 Alpharius wrote:
While I agree that the characters so far aren't all that great...

 Mr Morden wrote:

Instead we get the trials of a bunch of wealthy and entitled …………

...are they showing you a different version over there in the UK?

#

Don't think so? Which bit did I get wrong?

All the protagonists I saw in the first two episodes were middle class professionals "struggling" with their lives - especially the cowardly drug addict loser who has been indulged all his life but still can't cope? Like I said only the daughter seemed to have any empathy for anyone other than herself or ehr immediate family?

The shop owners seemed to be a bit more realistic but do they survive or do they sacrifce them so that the middle class "heroes" can survive to flail around uselessly?

As I said the sheer single minded selfishness of the protagnoists was off putting. Do they get any better? The Mother was the worst in this regard.

All of it?

I found the mom to be the most thoughtful of the bunch. But we're probably watching different shows. Just in the first two episodes we see her:

-Take steps to protect a student from expulsion
-Try to warn her neighbors
-Take care of her daughter to ensure she's safe
-Offer to take in a kid from her school

This doesn't even touch on the last episode that aired.

I'm honestly not sure where you get selfish from. Do you expect her to run out gather a horde of humanity to lead against the zombies? How is it selfish to look after your family. She didn't even hesitate when her boyfriend needed to leave to get his kid.

Also why the condemnation for the "middle class"? Where did you expect them to draw the protagonists from?

 Hulksmash wrote:
Odd, I found the mom to be the most thoughtful of the bunch. But we're probably watching different shows. Just in the first two episodes we see her:

-Take steps to protect a student from expulsion
-Try to warn her neighbors
-Take care of her daughter to ensure she's safe
-Offer to take in a kid from her school

I'm honestly not sure where you get selfish from. Do you expect her to run out gather a horde of humanity to lead against the zombies? How is it selfish to look after your family. She didn't even hesitate when her boyfriend needed to leave to get his kid.

Also why the condemnation for the "middle class"? Where did you expect them to draw the protagonists from?

"Do you expect her to gather a horde of humanity " Did I say that - no i didn't - was resorting to over the top examples needed?

When did she try and warn her neighbours? Not in the 1st two spisodes - even after seeing the dead and killing them - she remains totally silent -even when her daughter ask she won't tell her. No she lets them mess about with a kids party and goes off to get the drugs for her son.
She has little to no interest in her daughter - seldom if ever knows where she is and hides the truth from her as much as possible.
The kid at the school helps her - she manages to save him from the zombie but then dumps him.

As I actually stated she is obsessed with her son (fair enough) but to the total exclusion of everyone else - she does not care about the deaths of anyone else that he had been with - and is extremely dismissve of it "bad things happen".
Her daughter is trying to help her boyfriend and she is just interested in getting back to the drug addict. her daughter wants to help the neighbour whose husband is attacking her and her chidlren but is stopped - could they have saved the wife and kids, - quite possibly. Sheould they have tried - maybe, maybe not but it was an insight into her character. But no she just listens to the screams of a women and her children being eaten alive. It happens in life that people will ignore such things but now and again I would like at least some of the protanginsts to rise above the worst in humanity.

Again as I actually stated in previous post - seeing the evolution say of the gangers from bad guys to protectors would have been more interesting than this bunch of self obsessed losers who almost without exception show no interest in others. Why does it have to be only the middle class in the show?

Oh and I thought from the media that Americans had lots of guns - why is it in TV shows that no one seems to have one apart from criminals and cops?

Every thread in the OT doesn't have to turn into a gun thread, does it?

No - actually, it doesn't!

 gorgon wrote:
Long ago I decided that Mr. Morden and I live in different dimensions. Sometimes people have such wildly different opinions on the same thing that alternate universes are the only explanation.

And I can see that this is the case once again.

The wife agrees with Morden. I just look on it as so much more excellent when they die.

That the characters are 'wealthy and entitled'?!?

Are you OK with the wife existing in the same Alternate Dimension as Mr. M?

 Alpharius wrote:
That the characters are 'wealthy and entitled'?!?

Are you OK with the wife existing in the same Alternate Dimension as Mr. M?

The Family are middle class professionals? They certainly are not poor?

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
That the characters are 'wealthy and entitled'?!?

Are you OK with the wife existing in the same Alternate Dimension as Mr. M?

The Family are middle class professionals? They certainly are not poor?

Well, they definitely aren't wealthy either, unless your only description of someone's economic status is "wealthy" or "poor."

They seem to live in a middle class neighborhood and have a normal sized house. I'm not entirely familiar with the housing market in LA, but it doesn't seem like it's that outrageously priced where the show is set.

Well that was a strange episode.
*When did the daughter finally get religion?
*So why did they cart off the druggie?
*WHy did they go into the house stormtrooper like? That was way OT and very Hollywood to make them look like the bad guys. If they were just carting them off for "special treatment" why did they want the fake nurse to come help?
*If they are patrolling within the perimeter why are they shooting humans?

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/fear-walking-dead-boss-new-825003

Interview with the showrunner about the trash we witnessed last night. While the show was painting the military as the villain, it seems that 'behind the scenes' much more is going on, and the military are really the good guys but things aren't going well, or some junk like that.

So, it seems to me, that FTWD did something nobody has ever done before: they combined the "inept military", the "ineffective military" and "military as villain" tropes into a single mega-trope of fail.

chaos0xomega wrote:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/fear-walking-dead-boss-new-825003

Interview with the showrunner about the trash we witnessed last night. While the show was painting the military as the villain, it seems that 'behind the scenes' much more is going on, and the military are really the good guys but things aren't going well, or some junk like that.

So, it seems to me, that FTWD did something nobody has ever done before: they combined the "inept military", the "ineffective military" and "military as villain" tropes into a single mega-trope of fail.

That's how it plays out in the comic book more or less. They start to get a handle on the situation, helping the uninfected and securing the safe zones. But then the cities began to collapse and the military started using lethal force on both the infected and uninfected before eventually being overrun. It's always been pretty heavily implied that the government knows a lot about what is going on then they lead citizens to believe and I think the show reflects that.

The military isn't really the 'bad guy,' at least to the outside observer (read: the viewer). The "massacre" that they talk about in that interview seems like it was started by the civilians; they didn't want to leave (which they should have) and so they resisted (which proved costly). They're doing what has to be done to prevent the plague from spreading. As viewers, we know that this is ultimately futile, but the characters and the military/government don't know that yet. It isn't that they're inept or ineffective, they just can't keep up with the rising number of zombies (an idea that certainly isn't new if you've read the comics or watched The Walking Dead).

We, the audience, are supposed to like the main character and cheer him on.
The main character is usually the first contemporary character the audience is introduced to. I the case of FTWD, this is the druggie son.
So we are supposed to like this punk who has no qualms laying directly under a man as he twitches and gurgles in agony as he steals that man’s medicine. Really? I’m supposed to relate to this human refuse?
When the guards were in the house, I was hoping they put a bullet in his brain. I was disappointed.

Does anybody else think the druggie kid looks like Johnny Depp in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

 Gen. Lee Losing wrote:
We, the audience, are supposed to like the main character and cheer him on.
The main character is usually the first contemporary character the audience is introduced to. I the case of FTWD, this is the druggie son.
So we are supposed to like this punk who has no qualms laying directly under a man as he twitches and gurgles in agony as he steals that man’s medicine. Really? I’m supposed to relate to this human refuse?
When the guards were in the house, I was hoping they put a bullet in his brain. I was disappointed.

He did get the buttstock facial, so there's that.

You have an excellent point.

Compare and contrast TWD Season One. All the protagonists are basically good people. The only bad one was the wife abuser and he didn't last long.
FWD so far...the only one I like is the barber. They play the daughter like a teen girl. News flash most teen girls are annoying just like that.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
Does anybody else think the druggie kid looks like Johnny Depp in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

Yes he does. That's a good catch!

Travis and Madison are pretty clearly the show's leads, and I don't see what's *unlikeable* about them. You may not agree with their decision-making at times (especially if "what you WANNA do here during a zombie apocalypse is..." is your thing), but they seem like good, normal, middle-class people to me. I don't get it.

Nick...is a junkie. If you've ever known anyone with a substance abuse problem, you know how it can make otherwise good people do bad things. Here I was thinking that it was very unrealistic that he'd gotten clean so easily in a few weeks. That's a battle that people tend to lose rather than win even in perfect conditions.

Regarding the National Guard unit, I also don't see what's so awful about their characterization, unless we're pulling a faux patriotism thing. The officer seems like a jagoff, but the guardsmen (from the little we've seen) seem like they're under control and doing their jobs as they've been told in the most extreme of situations. And EVERYONE is staring down and dealing with the fact that this may be the end of civilization, if not the species.

See, I thought that was the point of Travis's rooftop moment. Not that "OMG, the military is bad!" It was "OMG, the situation IS THAT BAD!", echoing Madison's findings. I think they all understand it at some level, it's just that a few of them have accepted it sooner than others. Madison was much farther down the path than anyone except Daniel or Nick, hence her journey through the fence. Liza seems to realize it's an opportunity to be more in the post-apocalypse world than she was during normal times. It'll be interesting to see if the rooftop is what flips Travis's "ON" switch like some of us have been talking about.

Obviously, other people feel differently than me, but I think it's been interesting watching these individuals each deal with the end of civilization. It's not a perfect show or narrative, but I have a hard time raising any bile about it. *shrug*

I dunno, to me the Guard/military was being painted up to look like the villains here, mind you not of the mustache twirling variety, but of the 'we're at odds with the morality of the protagonists' variety. I think, this is the result of a portrayal through the forced perspective *of* the protagonists. We're only be shown the public side of their actions, we aren't shown the whos, the whats, the wheres, and the whys. We don't know whos in charge, what they know, what theyre doing, why they're doing it, etc. So they could be undertaking actions and behavior with the best intentions, with absolutely nothing sinister about it, yet to us, through the eyes of the protagonists, it would appear as though there was some shadowy and sinister going on. The inept factor is coming into play, because we already see that at least some of the main characters are dead set on violating the rules and policies that are being put in place by their protectors (again, because their skewed sense of morality mixed with a hyperactive survival instinct seems to trump any amount of logic or reasoning). The ineffective aspect is there because it is hinted that the crisis response isn't going as well as they would like people to believe.

Also, realistically, if the military response was able to establish the sorts of safe zones shown and described in this episode, then I think, in the real world, we could go ahead and say crisis probably averted (particularly if the response to those outside the wire is as brutal as whats being shown here), with the exception that the fact that *any* death, and not just an 'infection', leading to reanimation would complicate matters of maintaining effective quarantine.

Finally watched it. Overall solid.

I agree that because of the focus the military is being shown in a "villainous" fashion. That said outside of the pure dickishness of the commander (which could just be due to bluntness and stress) I didn't feel like military was intentionally evil or taking people out back and shooting them. I got a vibe of people who have already seen some gak and genuinely feel like they're doing the right thing.

Something to consider is that the military has only cleared 6 miles from the hills. If the other "camps" are similarly situated they haven't even touched on the population of Los Angeles. So the situation is far from "contained" in a modern situation.

That 6 mile cordone is as much for the safety of the troops as the people in the camps. They need the buffer and they need a safe line of retreat. If they miss potential zombies on the way out they could be accidentally cut off.

Again I think the issue isn't that the military is inept it falls back on the actual government who are hiding what is happening from the people. Granted the choice to grab people in the middle of the night is stupid and paints a poor picture but that might be orders. It's certainly has to be orders to not talk at all about what's going on and where the hospital is. I don't think they are against the character morality. It's that since there aren't allowed to talk to people about their reasons they appear that way to the characters.

Overall I'm still enjoying the show and it's ramping up well. I like Madison, Nick, the Salazar Daughter and Daniel most right now as they are people that each in their own way are survivors and are already accepting the situation. The sister, Travis, his son are meh but at least mildly interesting.

The mom is an annoying bag of crazy, and the characters are written to be so ungodly unlikeable.

Seriously, the mom and daughter watched their neighbor literally get chased down and attacked, and then not only did they turn away without question, they went and played Monopoly! Are you fething serious?