I am speaking specifically of the tv series, not the comic, as I gave up on that long ago. But with the new season about 24 days away, I thought it would be a worthwhile topic.
What brought it to mind was noticing that Xfinity has all of last season available to watch for free on demand, and apparently it will stay that way till at least 12 October. I was tempted to start watching again, but then I thought, “No. I do not wish to see Carl getting almost raped, or Rick ripping out a guy’s teeth, or any more horrors on that nature. I do not want to infect my mind with images of a world that is totally without hope, happiness, or joy. I am going to pretend that the story ended after Rick’s crew defeated the governor and took in Woodbury’s survivors.”
I stopped watching after Hershel’s death. I had already realized that this was a bleak world with no real hope left in it; that the walking dead weren’t the zombies, but the survivors. The beheading of the shows moral center was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
I gave up four episodes into this last season (actually, it might be three episodes; whatever, I could not care the tiniest bit less). You know, I made it through season one relatively unbothered by that season’s shortcomings (the most egregious of which being the gang episode wherein Glen gets kidnapped) because the pilot was SO goddamned GOOD. And then I just barely made it through the boring-as-fuck shitshow that was season two. BARELY. And season three, I thought, was pretty all right and restored my faith, sort of, in the show… until that horrible, tone deaf season finale. And like I said, four (or was it three?) episodes into this most recent season, and I sat there on my couch thinking to myself: You know, I’m not watching this show at all because I enjoy it anymore. I only like two characters (Daryl and Herschel), and I actively loathe all the others. I’m watching out of sheer obligation. As in like a fucking JOB. That I wasn’t being paid to do.
So I broke it off clean right there, and have seldom looked back.
And here I thought season 4 was one of the BEST the show has been in a long while, except for that silly finale(the scene of the gang being herded looked silly).
Got all sorts of friends who try to tell me how good it is and why I should be watching it.
Have only ever watched part of one episode. As above, I watch movies and TV to be entertained, and a world of violence without hope is not entertaining to me. But then, I don’t watch violent horror movies either. I don’t find it entertaining to watch people being tortured and killed.
This is why I gave up on it. I’d prefer a long-term plot thread where the survivors are traveling from lab to lab trying to piece together a cure. When it became clear that the show’s PTB weren’t interested in that angle, I lost interest in the show.
A cure for what? The zombies can’t be cured, they are dead and rotting. A cure for the infection they all carry that will reanimate them when they die, big woop this is the least of their problems as they can simply make sure anyone who dies gets a bullet through the brain and sleep in locked rooms.
At this point a cure is meaningless.
(It is established early on that everyone is already infected, it only triggers once they die)
I’ll agree that the search for a cure wouldn’t work; it wouldn’t be believable with this set of characters. But what I’d like to see would be some sort of hope–the idea that humanity might not be doomed, not things constantly and pointlessly getting worse
And you know the very strange way that could be done? Killing Judith.
Yeah, I know, horrible. I hate to think of a baby dying even in fiction. But if Judith died and STAYED DEAD, then it would mean that not EVERYONE was infected: just those alive at the time of the virus release.
And as I think on it, they’d not have to kill Judith. It could just be some other survivor’s baby. Hell, if they’d let what’s-his-name–the Governor’s science guy – live and continue his research, that would have been a way to show some possible hope, rather than the endless shock & gore fest.
A cure wouldn’t do anything for the already zombiefied but it could prevent bite transmission and the whole turning when you die thing. So yeah, it would be helpful. Basically limiting the zombie numbers to those already in that state (and any newbies that pop up before the cure is disseminated.)
I’ll still watch it, for now. It takes a lot to stop me watching a show I committed myself to in the first place.
I’d like to see more hope, though. The prison was a good place for that, but that’s obviously gone. The thing where they have one main story arc per season and then everything goes to shit for the season finale is getting a bit old. The characters rarely seem to be thinking long term, however. And for people who have survived that long, they don’t seem to be “thinking outside the box” much, in that respect. They’ve got all the time in the world to build a zombie-proof fortress, and they never really try very hard. The prison was almost ready-made, but they did little to reinforce it. No one did anything to make the farmhouse a safe place. Everything is reactive - there doesn’t seem to be anyone using the good days to prepare for the bad.
We’ve covered this in the threads but the idea that there’s just mountains of canned goods out there is fallacy. Most American homes don’t rely on canned goods anymore and you’re looking at maybe a weeks worth of food meant for a single family. At this point in the story those readily available sources in homes and grocery stores are going to be depleted.
Places with higher population density–meaning more of those possible personal food stores–are also DENSELY populated with Zombies and are not viable options.
To answer the thread question–I haven’t given up on the show, but I admit it’s not a GOOD show–in fact sometimes its downright awful. It’s hard to distinguish one episode from another and there’s no stand-out scenes.
We’ll agree to disagree then, more densely populated cities you can get around via roof top and ignore the hordes in the street. There is a street near me with six groceries on it, all have isles of canned food not to mention dry goods. All can be accessed via rooftop from neighboring buildings, you could make your way around a city like that without touching the ground.
I simply can’t buy a large amount of survivors deciding cannibalism is a good deal in TWD, better to use these people on raids.
Now in The Road, where the setting specifies no one died in the world ending event and the population has been slowly dwindling for about a decade, sure there are no canned goods left.
EDIT:Why the hell is Michonne not showing them how to make dozens and dozens of “neutered” zombies?! The zombies can be chained together and hitched to carts as essentially both free labor AND camouflage from other zombies. Load up the carts with scavenged goods and use them like a horse team or dog sled.
I enjoyed the show up to episode 4, then for the last two episodes of season 1, it took a sharp left into Soap Opera Land. No interest.
Based on the comments here, it sounds like (besides the soap opera) the show also has a case of the depressions. I remember the occupation section of Battlestar Gallactica, and what a slog that was to get through. No thanks.
