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The Walking Dead

mnkykungfu

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bionicbob said:
However, still loving Walking Dead. Season Six has been very enjoyable for me. The second half opener was mind-blowing for me, in the span of a couple of minutes Rick's latest paramour and family is wiped out and then what happens to poor Carl!

It's interesting to go back and see people's journeys as their feelings changed for this show.  I stayed away from it during all the hype, so now just watching it on Netflix straight through is a very different experience, I think.  I had a very different reaction to the Zombies/Wolves battle in Alexandria, for example.

This was the first season where I felt that pretty much all of the characters had become pretty competent, smart, hardened survivors except Eugene and my personal least favorite, Julian.  So it was brutal to see the writers continually have Carl make stupid decisions with regards to Jody that led to such a predictable outcome.  It doesn't fit with how savvy they previously portrayed him.

Similarly, the whole "we're all going to hold hands and walk through this and nothing will go wrong" seemed like the stupidest plan ever that Rick could've come up with.  They could've maybe sold me on it by him making some speech to the kid beforehand, or purposely positioning them all in a certain order, or something, anything!  But of course that idea would go horribly wrong.  

This was just the first instance of writers writing because they wanted to make a tragedy happen, not writing the characters as they've been developed.  The whole ending with Negan was so contrived, it was ridiculous.  No amount of good acting can make up for such unbelievable writing.  I know almost half the audience of the show left after the next season premiere, which was also horrible.

I've started watching again after a break from that to see if I can hang in there.  Some friends tell me the recent season has been some of the best episodes yet, but I'm not willing to wade through another season and a half of bad writing to get there, so we'll see...
 

MusicEd921

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We left the show 3 episodes into Negan's season and never looked back.  Don't miss it, don't care.  Occasionally I'll look up to see what characters from when I used to watch are still alive or who didn't make it, but that's the extent of it.  After I heard how things played out with Carl and then Rick, I was thankful that I jumped off.  None of my co-workers who used to discuss the show "water cooler" style watch anymore either. 

Good luck to those that still strive on!
 

WilliamRedRobin

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I originally watched the first two seasons of Walking Dead when they came out, but after that I had didn't really have any desire to watch it for some reason and I just kind of assumed it wasn't very good.
I've been rewatching it all now and it's way better than I thought so far.
Especially season 2, which I remember thinking was pretty dull, and I remember the Internet reinforcing that opinion, but this time I thought it was great! Maybe it's just the difference between seeing it weekly and binge watching, but I really think the content of that season is under-appreciated.
The Governor I though was a really cool and well thought out character, but there was something missing in the execution and I don't think he really lived up to his potential.
The Terminus story was pretty great start to finish, and Alexandria's been fun despite the annoying habit the show's developed of killing characters in dumb ways and bringing in new characters just to kill them.
I really like the way the show splits characters off from one another and shows their perspectives one at a time. I've only gotten up to half way through season 6 now, so no spoilers, pls.

It's kind of strange to see all of the big moments I'd heard people talking about when it aired, only being days apart instead of years, but I'm trying not to let those reactions colour my viewing.

Has anyone else watched/been watching it since it ended? Has it changed your opinions at all?
 

addiesin

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I originally watched the first two seasons of Walking Dead when they came out, but after that I had didn't really have any desire to watch it for some reason and I just kind of assumed it wasn't very good.

Has anyone else watched/been watching it since it ended? Has it changed your opinions at all?
When it aired I dutifully watched season one and loved it. It changed way too much for me in season two - half the budget, double the episode count, and a new showrunner to boot. I only made it up to the season's midpoint reveal with the barn, which I found extremely silly. I won't get more specific because it's pretty spoiler heavy. In the moment, I just felt like the show was wasting my time. I'm glad people can enjoy the show for what it is but I am surprised to see you say you enjoy two so much. Almost makes me want to give it another shot, but that's a big time investment.
 

mnkykungfu

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Alexandria's been fun despite the annoying habit the show's developed of killing characters in dumb ways and bringing in new characters just to kill them.
Oh, get ready for A LOT more of that.

Has anyone else watched/been watching it since it ended? Has it changed your opinions at all?

The Walking Dead was perhaps my favorite comic book of all time. Yes, it's a black-and-white series I tore through as graphic novels, having stopped about halfway through it's run. The series has since finished but I want to find time to sit down and re-read the beginning before catching up. And because I loved the comic so much, I put off watching the show. I thought it was almost impossible that it wouldn't end up disappointing me.

It has accumulated its fair share of detractors, and sure, Season 2 was different enough that some early fans got turned off. But That shows overall numbers just went up and up the first few seasons, which some people forget now. I didn't start watching until I think season 4 or 5 had already finished, when it was still just about the most watched and most talked about thing on TV, except maybe Game of Thrones. This didn't require a subscription though, so it had a much broader audience base. People loved the crap out of this show, and to my surprise...I did too!

...but my initial misgivings were eventually confirmed. While the show writers, with creator Robert Kirkland's blessing, tried to throw in surprises and wrinkles as they departed in key ways from the original series (different characters dying, for example), they lost a lot of the tightness of the original story. I think the show made a pretty compelling case for building these characters up into very smart, capable, resourceful, dangerous people who survive because they are prepared and careful and willing to make the hard choices. That's why they get through Terminus, and that was a great little departure from the original story. But the season immediately afterwards then starts playing them for goons....

Characters you've seen be incredibly competent are suddenly incompetent. They used to sneak up on everyone, now they can't sneak up on anyone. They used to be deadly shots, now they can't hit anything. And so on. The TV series writers seemed to realize that they had somehow made this crew overpowered, and rather than write even better antagonists, they instead just decide to write our heroes as lesser than they were. Why? Because they needed to create drama, and couldn't think of a better way to do it. TV is a grueling schedule, and the episodes get made with the best ideas you've got. If you start going off-script from the original story, you'd better have better ideas to replace it. They didn't.

The main jumping off point for most people came at the end of the upcoming season, when the characters are forced into a really bad position for no particular unavoidable reason besides lazy writing. Then the writers decide to have long, long scenes torturing them. It crossed a line for a lot of people. Tragedy is when you see the characters fighting hard but just in an unavoidable situation. Most of the show up to this point had been tragedy. But when the situation is avoidable but the writers just stick the characters in it for entertainment, that becomes torture porn.

I jumped back in after a year or so break, but by Season 8 the characters were making really dumb decisions nearly every episode. Most of them didn't resemble the characters I'd been following since Season 1. I'm not into watching Horror movies where somebody runs upstairs instead of out the front door, and that's what the show became. It's audience continued to dwindle each year afterward until they started investing more in the spinoff series and even shifting some characters over to that one. They never really recovered.

So if you get back into the show, be warned. There are strong moments, but for a lot of people, the writing more and more starts to become a betrayal of your investment and a waste of time. If I had it to do all over again, I never would've started watching it.
 

WilliamRedRobin

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I am surprised to see you say you enjoy two so much.
There's still a lot of back-and-fourth, but it's a lot more tolerable over a few hours than over a few weeks. There's still a lot of fluff like the well thing and Beth's story, which serves no purpose except that you might not have realised Beth exists before that.
I can't say its definitely rewatching, but the good parts managed to shine through for me at least.
Oh, get ready for A LOT more of that.
I was worried that would be the case.
I think the show made a pretty compelling case for building these characters up into very smart, capable, resourceful, dangerous people
Carol's transformation from meek battered housewife to cold elegant killer might be my favourite part of the show so far. It might have been a little unsubtle, but then The Governer was played a little too subtle imo, so maybe it's for the best. Unfortunately she seems to have become a psycho in Alexandria. The thing with the Wolf guy is probably the first thing I would say is characters doing stupid things for no reason.
The TV series writers seemed to realize that they had somehow made this crew overpowered
To be honest, I got the feeling they were getting overpowered, but that's mainly because of the zombies apparently being made of mashed potatoes, and only being dangerous around unnamed characters.
They could have made Terminus a bit more believable if they had added more time for planning rather than being done on the fly, which made it feel a little convenient.
Other than that, they seem pretty balanced in terms of PvP. It's a shame if they choose to play the characters down like that.
 

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I can definitely see why so many people switched off after Neegan came in. Having a massively brutal event like that and then just wandering around aimlessly for a few episodes is super depressing, which I guess is the point but it just makes the show feel pointless and not fun to watch.
I'll stick it out, but fingers crossed it gets better.
 

mnkykungfu

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That season ender was a huge jumping-off point. For me, it broke any credibility having these rando bikers coming in and somehow being so much more effective than the hyper-competent protagonists. Literally everything the group tries had already been thought of and counteracted, despite them being so much better than the same people in everyone interaction before. It was just clearly a setup by the writers to stick the characters in a horrific situation. It was writing due to a plan to spike online chatter with another shocking death rather than just writing the characters as they'd act. The writers had been doing that a lot at that point, planning a big character death each season break or season finale and promoting the episodes a lot on social media, and it started backfiring. People didn't want to tune in anymore just to watch a blatant promotional event. You can literally track the big character moments based on where they fall in a season. It's funny how nothing big ever happens to a main character in episode 3 of the season, no matter how serious that plot point might be. And no finale ever passes without a death, no matter how competent the characters may be. It's "plot armor" in full effect through the season, and then reverse plot-armor at the end. Doesn't matter what the characters do, someone will die just 'cuz.
 

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OK, I hate this show.
Season 7 was just plain weird. So many times I caught myself thinking "what the hell is happening and why?" the worst part had to be the junkyard people who have apparently forgotten how to speak English over the course of three years and nobody seems to think that's strange. I would have thought something that bizzare would have been talked about more, but I had no idea it was in the show and it was all the worse for it.
Season 8 is less weird, but it's still awful. The gunfights are boring which sucks because that's all there is. The jumping back and forth in time which was pretty cool in S6 has become infuriatingly confusing. I can barely keep track of who is where and why, and a lot of the time I see a character and can't remember what they were doing last time they were on screen.
It's bad enough one episode after another, I can't imagine how much worse it would have been if I had to wait a week between each episode.
The one bright spot is that the humour is actually really good. It doesn't joke around too often, but when it does it's genuinely funny. It does a lot to make Neegan likable, but he probably still needed to be less sadistic and more rule-oriented to be a better character. If he didn't enjoy killing people but felt he had to, he would be more believable as a leader imo.
Hopefully it gets tolerable again at some point.
 

mnkykungfu

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lol...I mean, I tried to warn you? I kept waiting for the show to recover, it's really hard to just stop watching when you used to care about a story and characters so much. But yeah, the good-to-bad ratio in the seasons you were describing is just not even comparable. I mean, in 3 years of zombies, somehow a guy has figured out how to train a domestic attack tiger? Come the eff on. The show just got increasingly ridiculous. The death at the end of the upcoming season is telegraphed a mile away and just feels particularly going-through-the-motions. It was the time I finally quit -for the third time- and never came back.
 

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I wonder if the whole Neegan saga could be cut down to a 1.5-2h movie and made more entertaining. There's some cool stuff and good story, like Eugene's arc, that might be worth salvaging, but I'd hate to go to all that effort just for it to still be bad.
 

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I don't know if you watched the Whisperer story arc, but I didn't find it that bad. There were a lot of pointless tanjents but the core story was solid and interesting.
I think there must have been a change in writers for season 10, though. The dialogue is noticeably worse from the get-go, which is a shame because dialogue has always been a strong point for the show even at its worst.
Im at the start of season 11 now. I don't think much of it so far, but as long as it doesn't reach the lows of season seven, I'll be happy enough just to see the end of it.
 

mnkykungfu

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That show will never end, mate. They just keep spinning the characters off into new crap like CSI. The comic book ended during the show, but they'd long since turned TWD into a franchise that will keep marching on like a brainless husk eager to transmit its aimless existence to new victims.
 

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I still haven't bothered watching the final season even now that it's up on Netflix for "free". I probably will watch eventually, but none of the new spinoffs. I'll also probably not bother with the final season of Fear the Walking Dead, which jumped the shark several seasons ago.
 

WilliamRedRobin

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I'm definitely not watching any spinoffs.
I remember the hype around Fear back at the peak of the show's popularity, but I don't remember people talking about it at all after it started.
 

mnkykungfu

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^My friend really likes it, actually, says it's better than TWD. The first season of Fear... was rough apparently, but after that or maybe season 2, they had some big change in the show and apparently it got a lot better. I don't know the details, but they came up with a new idea and killed off some of the major characters to focus on different ones, and it's really gone in its own direction since then. They're not bound by adapting any previous story, so maybe that brings some freedom that the writers are taking advantage of? I don't know, but I don't have so many hours to sit through waiting for something to get good. It's the reason I don't watch a lot of anime shows.... "Oh, Naruto really takes off after like episode 56! Well, except for this whole 12 episode arc in the middle, and then there's a really stupid later like...20 episodes. But every 3rd or 4th episode after season 6 is really amazing, just hang in there!"
 
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