Walking Dead Season 4

The trailer for season 4 has been released. Looks good!

Oh man that look's great. Can't wait for it !

All I can say is they had better get their shit together.

The creators, that is.

I'm kind of over this show now

Boris2008 wrote:

I'm kind of over this show now

I feel you. They do have a new writer now, which could be a good thing. They've just been so damn sloppy. Also from what I understand their budget keeps getting slashed for whatever reason and it's been a detriment to spice up their location shooting. Perhaps S.D. has more of a perspective on that.

It's a popular show and the ratings have been strong every season. What's with the smaller budget? Maybe a few of the main actors are asking for bigger paychecks.

Troublezone wrote:

It's a popular show and the ratings have been strong every season. What's with the smaller budget? Maybe a few of the main actors are asking for bigger paychecks.

Rumor has it this is why Frank Darabont was given the boot because his concepts were requiring too much money. It really is an expensive series with a lot of outdoor locations, set dressing, makeup+, even CG.

Trade pubs are theorizing what I've been thinking; the series has higher ratings because of how long they've been drawing things out. Most of last season really could be condensed into four or five episodes. It's very short on story at this point, but having a major villain kept people on the edge of their seats. Plus, zombies are still a novel concept. I myself am fully burnt out on them, having been a zombie fan since first seeing Dawn of the Dead at 15 years old.

Still love the show,and am looking forward to the new season.Zombies are one thing I never get burnt out on.Its my favorite genre of horror flicks.And I've been a long time zombie fan like you corpl.

I haven't watched any of the series yet aside from the pilot episode (which I felt borrowed a little too much from 28 Days Later). I'm sure I'll get around to it one of these days but I already have so much stuff I'm watching it could be awhile.

Regarding the budget problems that is mostly due to being on AMC which does not have the capital for a huge series. Unlike other cable networks AMC doesn't have a big corporate owner helping fund their projects and they make a smaller than average percentage of revenue from cable subscribers.

Thrasher73 wrote:

Still love the show,and am looking forward to the new season.Zombies are one thing I never get burnt out on.Its my favorite genre of horror flicks.And I've been a long time zombie fan like you corpl.

The reason I'm burnt out is I've seen virtually every zombie movie made up to this point (except World War Z) and even read the Max Brooks books and some other novels/short stories, and the concept has been drained. There's only so much that can be done with flesheaters (except getting voodoo about it, which I hate). Zombies, for me, used to be scary, especially with the apocalyptic surroundings.

If you really think about it, The Walking Dead is more a survival show than a zombie show. The zombies are simply boilerplate. The kills are becoming repetitive and obligatory. What makes the show are the characters and their plight. Put a food shortage in place of the zombies, and you still have a decent show. That's how well-drawn they are, and what makes the show effective.

Problem is, though creative license should dictate the story shouldn't stick to the source material verbatim, I can tell everyone here this: the original comics are simply genius, and the show would have been wise not to deviate so wildly from the original story arc. The only relationship the show has anymore to the comics is setting and Carl's character. Everyone else is either dead when they're supposed to be alive or vice versa, and if you think the Governor is an evil guy--let's just be honest and say there's a lot of OTT caricaturing going on--you ain't seen nothing yet. Those who have read the comics here can probably agree.

Of course, as I've said, unlike a tight and economical series such as Breaking Bad or Mad Men, Walking Dead is now well known for one-chapter arcs being stretched out to utterly humorous lengths. Being creatively deliberate is one thing, but this show is simply getting low on ideas because these drawn-out sequences have nothing artistic to say.

The last episode of this last season was heavily criticized by fans and critics alike, and rightfully so. It was some of the sloppiest, glitchiest, and nonsensical writing I've ever seen on TV, and the Frank Capra ending didn't help at all.

Did you catch this Shay?



I really liked it, much more my style of Zombie story.

Boris2008 wrote:

Did you catch this Shay?



I really liked it, much more my style of Zombie story.

Looks interesting (especially if it's a satire), but man do I hate it when zombies run. It goes against the rules of basic physiology. But I suppose the idea of the dead raising does too.

Gonna find a way to see this.

corplhicks wrote:

Boris2008 wrote:

Did you catch this Shay?



I really liked it, much more my style of Zombie story.

Looks interesting (especially if it's a satire), but man do I hate it when zombies run. It goes against the rules of basic physiology. But I suppose the idea of the dead raising does too.

Gonna find a way to see this.

It's a real throwback to the George A Romeo "Zombies as social commentary' idea. Charlie Brooker is a talented man, if you haven't seen his 'Screenwipe' series you should check that out too. He's very very funny although Dead Set is not a comedy!

What's everyone's thoughts on the show so far this season?

Thrasher73 wrote:

What's everyone's thoughts on the show so far this season?

So far, so good. I like the sickness storyline and the different looking zombies because of it. And the characterization has been a step up,especially with Carol.

It's kicking ass so far. Definite improvement over last year.

^^^ Agree! They have opened up storylines that can go in several different directions and it's going to be a very interesting season.

Marginally better, more coherent, better use of logic and masking, less "deliberation" with long pretentious takes, and some intuition in the main storyline. I'm also glad they're not going overboard with new characters. Looks like the new head writer is working out.

Meanwhile, here's how I feel about the last two seasons. Have a laugh:

Yeah,it's more substance to it than last season I think.They do a good job of making it more of a post apocalyptic survival story than just another run of the mill zombie flick.

Thrasher73 wrote:

Yeah,it's more substance to it than last season I think.They do a good job of making it more of a post apocalyptic survival story than just another run of the mill zombie flick.

That's exactly what it is, a run of the mill survival show (the zombies are pretty incidental) that for me ran out of ideas long ago, just gave the first few of season 4 a chance but it's the end of the road for me.

What I loved about classic zombie movies was the utter hopelessness of it all. You always knew that the good guys would die and the zombies would prevail. A long running zombie show makes no sense to me at all and the lack of great characters means that I really don't care when one of them gets munched.

This is funny!  

^^+1 on both of your posts, Boris. I had seen that Zombie Story a while back and was blown away by the similarities.

Just saw the last episode. A slow one with a lot of that rambling, meaningless dialogue that masquerades as insight fodder. But still some good moments that raised it a bar above.

There's talk of AMC doing a spin off show focusing on another group. We'll see how it pans out. Carol maybe? Who knows. I would like for them to do a flashback episode while Rick was in a coma a d show us how it all started. Just to see who had it first and HOW they got it. A spin off could be interesting if done right.