I have to say that tonight’s episode seemed like a veritable T-Dog showcase compared to recent episodes. He had, like, SEVERAL lines and stuff. It was almost like he was a main cast member or something. Maybe a trend is starting, and next week he’ll get to do something mildly interesting.
I don’t think the acting is good, but there are many problems that are worse than the acting:
- There are no characters to identify with, if you are not good at identifying with idiots.
- In the second season, there is no sense of urgency to the Zombie threat. There seems to be almost no risk living on the farm. They could just occupy a neighbouring farm, get supply from the town etc. In the comics and the first season there was a constantly looming danger, and feeling that humans had been reduced to a lower position on the food chain.
- Shane’s earlobes are ridiculously large, making it difficult for me to pay attention when he talks.
- Nothing really happened on the farm, except for a lot of whining.
- I think they are not very consistant about how Zombies work.
I think another big problem, at least to me, is that there seems to be a lot of monologuing. It seems like every episode I watch has someone going of on a long uninterrupted rant about what they think and how they feel. It just seems so incredibly lazy. The writers can’t even be bothered to do dialogue!
Pretty dumb OP…just because the actors dont meet the expectations of the OP doesnt mean that the acting is bad; it means the OP needs to get out more.
Agreed, accents to me are way more of a general thing and the accents in the show sound like they are Southern to me.
I’m in upstate NY and work for a huge company that spans the whole eastern half of the US. We get transfers from the South up here and although I can’t pinpoint exactly where they are from when I hear them speak, I do know it’s southern.
Likewise when I go south on business, people know I’m northern when they hear my accent. They don’t say “Oh you must be from Albany, I can tell by the way you pronounce whatever”
The only two cities I know of in the US that can be pinpointed like that are NYC and Boston.
As far as acting goes, I know several people that are just like Rick and Shane, but with out the Southern accents of course!
Oh yeah, definitely. The telling instead of showing. Should’ve been high on my list.
I think the acting and writing are both much worse than most people admit. People, including me, just want to like this show. The writing and general plot was better the first season.
Rick and Shane always fall back on those gravelly voices when the audience is supposed to Take a Conversation Seriously and Know They Mean Business. I suppose this could also be a problem with the director.
I agree with whoever mentioned the extended monologues. Other, better written, shows do a lot more with a lot less dialogue. The conversations are repetitive and the writers also seem to take shortcuts that reduce suspension of disbelief when it comes to the actual action scenes.
Dale being surprised by a walker in the middle of a field after stumbling on a devoured cow is a perfect example. Same with Lori going after Rick and Glenn to tell them to get Herschel when Rick and Glenn had just gone to get Herschel. There were more plausible motivations to make her end up isolated and in trouble.
Your comments about Mean Mr. Mustard are not appropriate for this forum. You can talk about the show and you can talk about his argument, but comments like “the OP needs to get out more” belong in The BBQ Pit.
Absolutely. At least once a show - as you pointed out - I say to myself, “here we go” and I settle in so a character can explain to me their motivations.
But this is more writing than acting, acting being the focus of my OP. There are so many cool things about this show, and so many aspects of it are truly well done (the walkers are incredibly realistic; who doesn’t lean in a little closer whenever there’s an appearance?) that I think folks are giving the poor acting a pass.
mmm
I really don’t think very much about this show is very good. Maybe I have bitchy friends, but all we do is watch this show and then rant to each other about how much it sucks in every way (I know, we need better hobbies). So I guess from within my world this show never gets a pass and people talk about virtually nothing EXCEPT how bad the acting is – yet we keep watching it for some reason.
The acting is beyond horrible. The writing is an embarassment. The sets could be an soundstage anywhere, and when they encounter a specific place (ie, the CDC) they make sure that it’s nothing like reality. Zombie makeup can’t carry a whole season. Or even one show. Which is why every episode of this show has been worse than the one before it. Why do I watch it when I hate it so much? I just don’t know. I guess hope springs eternal that I could watch Lori die a relentlessly foreshadowed, completely pointless, stupid death, like the life she lived. A girl can dream.
You know, it’s one thing to argue that the acting is bad. You’ve got the shows there in front of you, and we can all talk about what we see and what we think about the acting.
But this complaint is kind of bizarre. What is your evidence that people in general are “giving the poor acting a pass”? Pretty much every discussion of the show I’ve participated in has in one way or another touched on the poor quality of the acting. Where are you getting the impression that people are giving it a pass?
Probably from the last episode thread where 3 pages have been spent on how Carl ended up with Darryl’s gun again. :rolleyes: (<— not directed at you or your question.)
But that’s not evidence that the acting is being given a pass. That’s just evidence that someone thinks that there are also other problems.
Possible Spoilers
I love the show. Absolutely love it. It’s event tv for my family.
That being said, I agree the acting is often laughable. The actor playing Rick hams it up every time he gives one of his predictable, self-loathing, indecisive speeches.
The comments on Dale’s mouth gaping, constant look of surprise and bewilderment are spot on as well.
But , I respectfully disagree with any negative assessment of Jon Bernthal’s acting. I found him riveting. I think the show will be lacking moving forward because of his absence. Now, I haven’t read the comics, so I don’t know what characters are going to pop up in the future, but the loss of Shane leaves Rick without a strong foil.
I think Scott Wilson and Norman Reedus are easily the best actors of the bunch.
As for the accents, I don’t have a problem with them. I tend to have a decent ear for regional accents and I find them all tolerable…at least not insulting. I live in the Philly area and I found the two guys who got shot at the bar to be believable. If those guys were reasonably authentic and they had about 5 minutes of screen time, then the main characters are probably doing a decent job at their own regional dialects. I mean Glenn sounds perfectly northern midwest to me and if I remember correctly he was from Minnesota or some place similar.
For what it’s worth, I had no clue Andrew Lincoln was British. I haven’t detected a hint of it. Not like Hugh Laurie or Dominic West.
I think the acting is pretty good on the show, it’s the writing that’s terrible. I hate the soliloquies that happen all the freakin’ time! I’m sure the group will move away from the farmhouse(season finale? my 8-Ball says all signs point to Yes) soon, and I hope when they do they actually get some better writing in.
I’ve commented on the quality of the writing in the past - I’ve speculated that some of the scripts were written on a Friday, because some of the writing is brilliant, and some of it could have been written by a first year drama student.
And then I remembered we were talking about the acting. 
Yeah, the acting is also spotty.
i did find it pretty hilarious, when the armed latino post-apocalyptic gang were soothed by a diddery old lady, only to find that they were secretly protecting a nursing home, and were actually horrendously civil and kind people!!
Since we’ve now seen that people who die turn into zombies, I think a nursing home is the last place I’d want to be.
Okay, so Grandma turns into a lurching animated corpse-she would still be very frail and weak and not much of a threat.
Thank goodness a lot, and I mean A LOT, of people disagree with those of you who think this show is bad or even just okay. IMHO it is one of the best shows on television. The writing is fantastic. They bring up issues big and small and show how each person is reacting differently to their changing world. That’s really what I like about it. I enjoy watching each character develop and change or not-change their views and values.
I also enjoy the acting (with very few exceptions). My only problem with the acting are some ticks that the actors have given their character like Shane’s constant shifting of weight and Dale’s constantly open mouth. I do think the woman playing Laurie is phoning it in a little but I love Andrea, Glen, Shane, Rick, Maggie, Herschel, Dale, and Darrel. And Rick’s accent is pretty damn good if you ask me, and you should because I studied accents for a few years.