The Scene staff
Zombies are the thing to get hooked on these days as more books, comics, TV shows and movies are telling their gruesome stories.
This fall, AMC released a spinoff series to “The Walking Dead” called “Fear the Walking Dead,” which was supposed to follow a set of regular people through the beginning of the zombie apocalypse and downfall of society.
“Fear the Walking Dead” was a quick six episodes that filled in before “The Walking Dead” started up in October.
Was it worth watching? Not really.
Rotten Tomatoes, the TV- and movie-rating website, gives the show a 61 percent viewer rating and 3.4 out of 5 stars.
The show started slowly, and the characters weren’t really relatable. It wasn’t until the last two episodes that the action picked up, and even then, there were a lot of slow, soft, touchy-feely moments.
“This is why the show feels too slow, even as the plot takes massive leaps forward,” a Forbes reviewer said. “There are so many scenes that feel like filler, even in a season that’s just six episodes long.”
The review added: “Good drama often means tough choices, morally complex conundrums, and so forth. But here we simply have characters acting ridiculous as the world crumbles around them, and since we’re all so used to this zombie parable, it’s bizarre to see characters react as though they’ve never even heard of such a thing, and it becomes very hard to empathize.”
In my opinion, “Fear the Walking Dead” just dragged on. It lacked much of the action that “The Walking Dead” fans were used to. When the action finally did pick up, it ended abruptly.
It was like watching six episodes of “The Walking Dead” filler for no reason.
There was promise of watching the breakdown of the world, but we never saw it. We spent most of the show in a secluded neighborhood with no sign of calamity.
Between the military coming in Episode 3 and the beginning of Episode 4, there was a time jump, and a quarantine was set up in the little neighborhood of the uninfected people and everyone was acting as if it was mostly a normal time.
Indiwire.com made a good point in its review: “We didn’t see the characters acclimating to their new situation; they were all used to it by the time we caught up with them.”
Wait … Wasn’t that the whole point of the show? We were supposed to experience the zombie apocalypse and downfall of society and see how people handled it. So we skipped all that.
One of the better parts of the show was drug addict Nick Clark, who was at first the only one who had seen a zombie and then became comic relief. Then came the pain of watching him go through withdrawal.
“The Walking Dead” has had a “token black guy” since the beginning. That’s something that follows the graphic novels that inspired the show.
These guys always seem to die, some quicker than others, and a new one takes the old one’s place. This started with the character T-Dog in Season 1 to the current one, Morgan, in Season 7.
“Fear the Walking Dead” didn’t do this right off. The token black guy every fan was waiting for, Victor Strand, showed up for the last two episodes. He was good and provided a few laughs, but why wait so long to bring him in?
This is what drove viewers nuts. The pace was so slow that it took three episodes to get to the outbreak stage, only to speed up in such a way that it didn’t make much sense for the last three episodes.
“Fear the Walking Dead” had so many problems, with pace, characters and storyline, which was hard to follow. Fans were given an idea as to what to expect, and the show didn’t really follow that basic outline.
What really makes no sense is that another season is scheduled next fall. Here’s hoping that this doesn’t kill “The Walking Dead” for future fans.
“Canceling Season 2 would be a mercy killing,” IMDb user Cary Howe said in his review. “Do yourself a favor and watch ‘Walking Dead’ reruns and avoid this turkey.”