My problem with Darabont’s approach is that he’s dumbed-down the storylines, and made the characters much more stupid/incompetent than they really are. And Teh Stoopid is severely distorting the plot and character development.
Really? CDC asplodes as a decon procedure? Really? Stupidly insulting.
And it’s one thing to take liberties, but Darabont isn’t telling the story - he’s regurgitating a bunch of Zombie Movie Cliches.
The sad thing is that it isn’t necessary - the material is fine on its own.
Man, that reminds me how much more sensible the comics were. The show has improved some aspects for me, but I don’t know why they pretty much ditched all of the above.
Marketability, I suppose. Not that Darabont actually respects his source material. That, and I suspect certain aspects of the books would not do well with a broader audience.
I think you’ve nailed it. I don’t think, at this rate, we’ll ever see Rick as anything other than a reluctant-yet-fearless leader with doubts about his aggression. And there’s no way the recent “no one is safe” arc will play out anywhere close to the comics. Why only push the TV envelope on gore? Why can’t we have a protagonist whose actions would challenge some viewers? I know the answer.
That’s what’s so frustrating about The Walking Dead for me. Other shows, even shows on AMC, have done exactly that: Don Draper on Mad Men, Tony Soprano, Al Swearengen.
But no, in the post-apocalyptic zombie world, the sheriff’s deputy has to be Dudley-fucking-Do-Right. Bo-ring. This show has the freedom of being on AMC but instead feels like it’s been focused-grouped and processed through fifty network TV executives.
Now that I think about it, probably one of them is pregnant. Because of the blood results, that or that one of them is becoming a zombie.
Anywho when they were showing the x-rays of the zombie brain did anybody notice that it still was a little lighted up it was like ember sparks , maybe that has something to do with the cure. I dont know just throwing ideas around.
Oh and for being the last episode of the season I totally thin that they should have done a real explosion not some badly made graphics one.
I can see why Darabont fired his writing staff. Hopefully he’ll avoid making a total diastor out of using freelancers. Deadwood used that model and was fucking spectacular.
Maybe you just need to pay attention to the show? I’ve been wondering where that grenade was for the last several episodes.
The story is about the people and their interactions. We’re still just getting to know them.
Again, if there’s a theme this season, it’s dealing with the loss of loved ones, or once they’re zombified, how to deal with them. Morgan wanted to finally kill his zombie wife but couldn’t. Andrea couldn’t deal with it until the last instant and TS-19 was a test subject until enough data had been collected, and then the doc worked to keep the promise to his wife.
If the next season follows the conclusion it will be choosing to survive and build a community rather than just escape after escape.
The interpersonal drama could be interesting, I suppose, but hasn’t been so far. Part of that is the writing (which hasn’t been very interesting or original in that regard), but I think a lot of it is the acting too. None of the leads in the triangle are very compelling as actors (the actress who plays Lori, in particular, has like two facial expressions), and the soapish aspects, so far. just aren’t playing. The actors don’t engender sympathy for their characters or even succeed very well at suspending disbelief. They come off like actors (especially Rick, who looks like he’s consciously posing for the camera in every scene).
The kid who plays Rick and Lori’s son is awful too, by the way. Typical, artificial, Hollywood kid actor.
Basically, I think the simple answer is that they should have ended the season with being accepted into the CDC, rather than ending on their escape from it. They simply didn’t have time to do anything meaningful (that was CDC specific), and the exposition about zombie brains didn’t really tell us anything we care about. If they had the whole next season to work with, they could have actually made everything make sense. Instead we got, “I’m not telling you that you’re about to be blown up for no particular reason. Nor am I locking you in to this room for any particular reason. And seeing as I have no reason for doing anything, I guess I may as well let you go. Oh but first, let me talk about how zombies come back from the dead, since you might not have picked up on that.”
I was being sarcastic. Blowing up a building to contain some pathogen is probably the worst thing you can do. You have no guarantee you will actually kill all the germs, you have destroyed all your research and just spreading building dust around can cause problems by itself. They had enough trouble in NYC figuring out how to dismantle the Deutche Bank building after 9/11 without spreading all the dust, mold and fungus that had accumulated.
That’s exactly why it was best that they didn’t end with them reaching the CDC.
If they had, they’d have to actually do something major with it to justify the months of waiting for the next season to start on that cliffhanger.
This way, they get it out of the way, so people won’t complain ‘they’re in Atlanta, dealing with what they think is a disease! Why didn’t they go to the CDC?’ But they don’t waste more than a single episode there.
I agree. By going to the CDC they have eliminated the fool’s hope of a cure, and now the focus can shift (more interestingly) to survival and rebuilding.