Is it Just me or or do more people find the Walking Dead a crapy show??

[Thaluikhain]

According to Erin Stout, probably not:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/critical-miss/9225-Highlanders-Anonymous

Swap game for TV show, though.

 

[Flatfrog]

Others have summed it up pretty well but just to add my voice - yes, I can't stand stories where people constantly get into peril through their own stupidity and fail to learn from their mistakes. I keep shouting at the screen 'Why are you still alive?!'

I finally gave up a couple of episodes into Season 3 when a character actually tried to give mouth to mouth to another character who had died through being bitten by a zombie. That was so far off the scale of stupid that I couldn't bear it any more.

I just got through a re-watch of the first two seasons of Prison Break, and the storyline of C-Note has a similar effect on me.

Captcha - mea culpa. Exactly.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I liked it and no I haven't read the comic (but I do read the overall summary) nor have I played the Telltale games. By all means the shows does got flaw but hey what else can I watched during Winter/ Spring time or whenever it is on? No don't quote me for suggestion as I simply watched whatever I like regardless what people had said about it unless it is really bad.

 

[krazykidd]

I watched the first two seasons on netflix. The first episode was good enough to get me interested .The rest was just so god damn boring . I forced myself through the second season . It was just so poorly written i don't want to watch any of it anymore . I can't believe people actually like this show . And i can't figure out why .

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

I consider it worth watching in the same way DBZ is worth watching. You stay for every 5th episode when something actually happens.

Unlike DBZ this is a show that has no where to go. Either they end the show after this next season, with everyone dying or a cure being found, or...they get cancelled the season after when everyone realizes that no end is in sight.

Same with Under the Dome. Nothing epic is gonna come from that, and so far its going nowhere. If anyone believes its gonna end up being on the air for a 2nd season then you should bottle that optimism.

I'd love to know who got the bright idea to turn a book, not into a miniseries, or a one-off movie, but an entire series.

At least the Walking dead comics are still coming, though I would actually be impressed if there were only one graphic novel and then they made 4 seasons out of THAT.

 

[Legion]

Others have summed it up pretty well but just to add my voice - yes, I can't stand stories where people constantly get into peril through their own stupidity and fail to learn from their mistakes. I keep shouting at the screen 'Why are you still alive?!'

I finally gave up a couple of episodes into Season 3 when a character actually tried to give mouth to mouth to another character who had died through being bitten by a zombie. That was so far off the scale of stupid that I couldn't bear it any more.

This is what puts me off a lot of American drama's. Most of the time their problems are caused by their own idiocy rather than some external factor. Dexter has started to get similar, almost every time he almost gets caught or something bad happens, it is because he does something completely illogical despite supposedly being a highly intelligent psychopath. The supporting cast are even worse.

Back to the Walking Dead, my problem is that their biggest threat in a world full of the flesh eating undead is not those creatures, nor other rival groups but their own mind numbing stupidity. I don't mind characters acting believably irrational, but in this show it goes way above an beyond what I can tolerate.

The comic that it is based on is a lot better, but the only real problem with it is that it gets a little repetitive. The characters themselves though are considerably better.

 

[Vrach]

You should play the game. One of the best stories in gaming.

Now, only if the game was worth playing. Because it is a game after all.

It is. An adventure game. Judging by your tone though, I'm guessing you're not a fan of the genre.

 

[Henkie36]

I thought the first season was the best. I liked how the show used it's inherent episodic structuring very much to its advantage by setting themselves a new goal pretty much every episode. It keep the pacing at a good level. I thought the second season became pretty draggy at parts, to the point where I thought: ''Okay, they could have also included this in the previous episode'' and I thought that more then once. Same basically goes for the third season, I think that quite a bit of the time it's outstaying its welcome. Crappy? No. It's still pretty good character wise, but it thinks it's more interesting to just see people boring themselves to death on a farm then it actually is.

 

[Flatfrog]

This is what puts me off a lot of American drama's. Most of the time their problems are caused by their own idiocy rather than some external factor. Dexter has started to get similar, almost every time he almost gets caught or something bad happens, it is because he does something completely illogical despite supposedly being a highly intelligent psychopath. The supporting cast are even worse.

Mostly I don't mind in Dexter because when he does something illogical, it's usually because of his drive to kill overriding his rational nature. In many ways, that's the whole driving force of the story.

Returning to Walking Dead, though, it's really the simple things that drive me crazy. Like - when going into an unknown area to 'clean out' the zombies, would you really take the old man who is your only doctor with you? Would you let your young children wander off unattended? When passing by a corpse, wouldn't you take the time to stab it quickly in the head just to be on the safe side? Aren't these the kinds of things that would just become second nature after surviving in the post-zombie world for a few months?

 

[Drizzitdude]

I enjoy the shows as someone who never read the comics beforehand. I will admit some episodes are all drama and nothing interesting happens but the majority of them have some kind of cool element to it.

 

[solemnwar]

According to Erin Stout, probably not:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/critical-miss/9225-Highlanders-Anonymous

Swap game for TV show, though.

[a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbole"]Was this never taught in English for anyone or something?[/a]



OT: I haven't watched it. I'm not really a fan of the whole grimdark fuck everyone fiction. I did like the Telltale game, although I just watched it through a Let's Play, which sufficed.

 

[Nemu]

I wondered when the next backlash would begin.

Among my various circles, most of the people who watched the show, enjoy(ed) the show. Those of us who read the comics grumble about the differences, but still watch. Like other things, the only people who seem to dislike it are online telling everyone how much they don't like it. To each his own, I guess.

 

[Syzygy23]

I think it's okay. I watched the first episode and thought it was just another boring zombie show/movie. Some months later I played the game and saw what the appeal was, so I gave the show another chance and actually like it. I like that the zombies are just a small threat in the walking dead, and the humans are the real one. It's much more believable and what I imagine would happen if there ever was a real zombie outbreak.

Ugh, that's what I HATE about the Walking Dead. 3 seasons only to find out that *GASP AND SURPRISE* man is the real monster.

Y'know, the SAME GOD DAMN MORAL every zombie flick, book, and graphic novel has ever used, in the history of ever.

Zombie stuff needs to go away for a while, like, 30 years or so. It's oversaturated at this point. How many times are we going to learn Man is the real monster? FUCK.

 

[AuronFtw]

It's pretty bad, yeah. If you're used to much higher quality HBO series like The Wire, Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire you'll be bored silly by the "actors" trying to have drama on-screen. It's a bit like special olympics but for acting.

The one refreshing aspect of the show was the main characters not being superpowered or having unlimited ammo, which forces them to think logically, be thrifty, conserve ammo and use whatever tools are at hand to deal with surviving in post-apoc zombieland. Sometimes this means hiding, sometimes they try to blend in, sometimes they try to take out the closest zombies and leg it, but there's always at least a little bit of tension because they *can* run out of bullets and sometimes their plans still fail.

If the cast had better actors and the story had more solid writing, you might have been afraid of the characters dying (a la Game of Thrones), but because they're all pretty much one-dimensional caricatures it takes a lot of effort to truly feel afraid for them. The show spends a looooot of time on these characters and their hilarious drama, apparently unaware that it's far from the show's strong point. Oh well.

 

[ItouKaiji]

I dunno, I think this is the show everyone watches knowing it sucks but secretly hoping it will get better because the premise is interesting and presents a chance for good drama and because the first episode was so slickly well done. Every new trailer is like that abusive boyfriend claiming that he's sorry and he's changed...but of course he never does. The show has been a major disappoint since the first episode with character in full on TV mode making decisions that only serve the plot without regard for what their character would actually do. The second season was the absolute low point, but for every thing season three did right, it did two more wrong.

I'm a fan of the comic but since the end of the first season I'd completely given up on them following the arcs in any kind of faithful way and now I'm glad that they're so far off the comics that I don't even have to compare them anymore, because it's quite obvious the TV show is it's own beast.

 

[FireAza]

I really like The Walking Dead, and many people I know are big fans of it too. Obviously, it's different from most zombie movies, since there's a larger focus on the human characters and less of a focus on the undead, but that's what makes it's unique.

 

[Lieju]

Essentially, for zombies to be remotely threatening after the initial shock of unpreparedness is resolved, you have two options to make them still be a threat to your heroes:

1. Make the zombies an exacerbating factor rather than a threat, and promote something else to the main villain. Warlords setting up in the wake of the apocalypse that might throw you out for pissing them off are the actual threat, but the zombies promote the threat of exile from "probably going to starve and die" to "definitely gonna get eaten and die". There are still zombies around, but they're sort of the hostile wilds, not the plot threat anymore.

I dunno, the zombies in Walking dead (The game, but I'm assuming this goes for the tv-show as well) are very difficult to defend against, because it's not enough to just avoid them; every person who dies becomes one, so all those barricades that keep them out will turn against you if one of the survivors dies inside.

But you're right, zombies themselves aren't interesting villains, all of the drama must come from how humans respond to them. And that situation is full of potential for paranoia. You have a situation where people would be afraid to sleep next to one another in case one of them dies in their sleep, and you're only ever safe if you're alone. And then you're vulnerable for direct attacks.

But it would change the human society (if humans were to survive) much more than if it was just an inhospitable environment.

 

[Evonisia]

OH yes. The Walking Dead is an exercise in wasted potential. The pilot was the best episode, the best season was the second one, and the entire premise is a waste. My friends and I all agree that it would've been WAY more interesting if Rick was the only constant character in the show, and it just followed his endless journey to find his family, who the audience knows is obviously dead. He would meet different people along the way, even temporarily join groups for a short time, but in the end, for one reason or another, he would always end up alone again.

Seriously, TELL me that wouldn't be a better show.

Well it'd be better if Rick wasn't one of the most boring characters in the show.

Maybe it's the actor or maybe it's the writing.

 

[FireAza]

I really like The Walking Dead, and many people I know are big fans of it too. Obviously, it's different from most zombie movies, since there's a larger focus on the human characters and less of a focus on the undead, but that's what makes it's unique.

ALL zombie movies are about the human characters. Zombies are an environmental hazard, they don't have a character or any terribly interesting mechanics in themselves-- they're a device to force a bunch of (probably incompatible) characters into the paint can and give them an obstacle to overcome with the power of friendship. (Or, in older movies, they're minions serving a big bad sorcerer that needs to be overcome with the power of friendship.)

If you claim to have seen a zombie anything where the plot wasn't what I just said, you're a liar, and not even a convincing one. The only distinction zombie movies have from standard disaster movies is that the power of friendship frequently fails to overcome anything whatsoever.

The Walking Dead has it's good points (the comic, anyhow), but originality is most definitely not one of them.

I didn't say zombie movies have NO focus on the human characters. I said that The Walking Dead places more of a focus on it's characters and less on the Walkers, while most movies are a 50/50 spread of zombie killing and drama in the group. With the Walking Dead being a series, this makes sense, since you have far more time to develop your characters and if you did nothing but showed zombie fighting, it would get stale quite quickly.

As to "claim to have seen a zombie anything where the plot wasn't what I just said, you're a liar" I have five words for you: Night of the Living Dead. i.e the first "modern" zombie movie, and the template for all zombie movies that followed, in addition to being one of the most famous and beloved zombie films ever.

This movie ends with the survivors fighting amongst themselves, the zombies breaking in and killing everyone except for one. Who is shot dead the next morning when he's mistaken for a zombie.