OT: THE WALKING DEAD SEASON 5 (NO SPOILERS)

[j4remi]

Maybe the Walking Dead formula is just problematic with typical story telling. They bring in characters, give them some development and then in order to bring in new characters, they kill of the ones that are only just beginning to get interesting. They could kill off a Sasha, but no one will care. So for one season, (Insert name) grows from being an after thought into a fully realized character with motivations that come from a real background and right as we understand them...they have to die for dramatic impact. You'd be numb to lesser developed characters dying and the most fully realized characters would spark a full on riot (Darryl). Meanwhile, there's not even enough screen time to keep all of the characters developing so Glen and Maggie are boring now, Carol can float two episodes with barely a line and you'd better believe that whichever character gets the next run of episodes explaining what makes them tick will be the most likely to get killed in a finale or season opener.

Watching these characters react to their situations is more interesting when they've had multiple arcs of growth, but the revolving door style for the group as a whole is taking away from just about every individual imo. Also, the whole search for shelter; find shelter; have a disaster force them out of shelter cycle has been pretty much all we've gotten revamped with slight differences from the farm on.

[frogfood]

Maybe the Walking Dead formula is just problematic with typical story telling. They bring in characters, give them some development and then in order to bring in new characters, they kill of the ones that are only just beginning to get interesting. They could kill off a Sasha, but no one will care. So for one season, (Insert name) grows from being an after thought into a fully realized character with motivations that come from a real background and right as we understand them...they have to die for dramatic impact. You'd be numb to lesser developed characters dying and the most fully realized characters would spark a full on riot (Darryl). Meanwhile, there's not even enough screen time to keep all of the characters developing so Glen and Maggie are boring now, Carol can float two episodes with barely a line and you'd better believe that whichever character gets the next run of episodes explaining what makes them tick will be the most likely to get killed in a finale or season opener.

Watching these characters react to their situations is more interesting when they've had multiple arcs of growth, but the revolving door style for the group as a whole is taking away from just about every individual imo. Also, the whole search for shelter; find shelter; have a disaster force them out of shelter cycle has been pretty much all we've gotten revamped with slight differences from the farm on.

Exactly. You can see how the writers pick one or two background members and give them some development (Maggie last week, Abe and Rosita this week) but it's such a pittance to what a character really needs to have the audience care.

The writing for this episode was really poor too. Like, holy hell, the apple sauce scene lol.

[ag3]

Last night's episode was the 1st good one of this new half season and it makes me very curious to see what will happen next.

[bishnykfan]

Well said remi. It's one of the problems of the show. To many characters to ever be able to fully develop them all. And when they do, it probably means they are doing it just to kill them off. The characters have such great potential, but as long as they only focus on Rick and Daryl and to a lesser extent Michonne, we will never connect to he others. They could all be such rich characters but we will never get to invest in them.

Its one of the reasons I loved the show Lost. As convoluted as the show got at the end, the show was great at developing so many different characters throughout and really making you care about them. TWD hasn't found that formula yet.

[BKAY]

Haven't watched since the tyrese episode... Should I even bother? Show has gone so downhill lately and with such great, raw material in the comics that wouldn't require any type of huge budget, i just don't get it. The show will have 2 great episodes followed by 5 horrible episodes. I actually thought they were coming back to the show we all liked this season but went so oooooo far off during the last Beth episode. Tyres episode was some of the worst directing I've seen in a long time. I don't know,i think I'm over it



Btw if you haven't checked out the Netflix show PEAKY BLINDERS, do it. Great show, 2 (6 1 hr episodes) seasons. Cillan Murphy ( scare crow from batman) is the main character and Tom Hardy (Bane) is introduced on the 2nd season. You won't regret it. First episode or two are a little slow(nothing like this walking dead shut though)


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[frogfood]

Peaky is great. Hyper violent. Sometimes a little too much for me. I mean that in a good way. Violence should make you feel uncomfortable. TWD's violence kind of lacks that kind of ferocity that makes you question humanity. But they're pretty gnarly though. Loved the flaregun skull.

The characters have such great potential, but as long as they only focus on Rick and Daryl and to a lesser extent Michonne, we will never connect to he others.

Rick and Daryl should really be one character. Too much overlap.

[ag3]

Haven't watched since the tyrese episode... Should I even bother? Show has gone so downhill lately and with such great, raw material in the comics that wouldn't require any type of huge budget, i just don't get it. The show will have 2 great episodes followed by 5 horrible episodes. I actually thought they were coming back to the show we all liked this season but went so oooooo far off during the last Beth episode. Tyres episode was some of the worst directing I've seen in a long time. I don't know,i think I'm over it



Btw if you haven't checked out the Netflix show PEAKY BLINDERS, do it. Great show, 2 (6 1 hr episodes) seasons. Cillan Murphy ( scare crow from batman) is the main character and Tom Hardy (Bane) is introduced on the 2nd season. You won't regret it. First episode or two are a little slow(nothing like this walking dead shut though)


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Last night's show was a good one and it should set up for a pretty good next show or 2.

[Meat]

Maybe the Walking Dead formula is just problematic with typical story telling. They bring in characters, give them some development and then in order to bring in new characters, they kill of the ones that are only just beginning to get interesting. They could kill off a Sasha, but no one will care. So for one season, (Insert name) grows from being an after thought into a fully realized character with motivations that come from a real background and right as we understand them...they have to die for dramatic impact. You'd be numb to lesser developed characters dying and the most fully realized characters would spark a full on riot (Darryl). Meanwhile, there's not even enough screen time to keep all of the characters developing so Glen and Maggie are boring now, Carol can float two episodes with barely a line and you'd better believe that whichever character gets the next run of episodes explaining what makes them tick will be the most likely to get killed in a finale or season opener.

Watching these characters react to their situations is more interesting when they've had multiple arcs of growth, but the revolving door style for the group as a whole is taking away from just about every individual imo. Also, the whole search for shelter; find shelter; have a disaster force them out of shelter cycle has been pretty much all we've gotten revamped with slight differences from the farm on.

there is an element of stability coming in the future which should lead to more time to develop characters deeper

[Barcs]

How many times are they going to recycle the same exact plot devices? The whole thing with people driving cars and not paying attention to the road and plowing into a herd of zombies as if they had no idea has been done to death. You'd think 3-4 years in, they'd know by now to WATCH THE ROAD when you drive.

Tyrese's death pissed me off. The guy that took on hundreds of zombies at once by himself, dies from a single zombie hidden in a room that he didn't check and instead got distracted by child photos. That was just dumb. He should have at least gone out in style, if that was the plan.

This season has been meh so far to me. The first episode after the break made me angry and the 2nd was just people sulking all day. The 3rd finally picked it up again, but there's only 3 more episodes left? Continuity is not something that they do on this show at all. They can't keep a theme going for an entire season, they jump around like crazy.

It makes you wonder what will go wrong this time at this new place. These guys have technology, and you can hear children playing in the background. I wonder if its an illusion and they are really being brought in for slave labor. When the guy talked about humans being the most important resource on the planet, it made me lean toward that.

[towelie]

Well said remi. It's one of the problems of the show. To many characters to ever be able to fully develop them all. And when they do, it probably means they are doing it just to kill them off. The characters have such great potential, but as long as they only focus on Rick and Daryl and to a lesser extent Michonne, we will never connect to he others. They could all be such rich characters but we will never get to invest in them.

Its one of the reasons I loved the show Lost. As convoluted as the show got at the end, the show was great at developing so many different characters throughout and really making you care about them. TWD hasn't found that formula yet.

I actually think if they showed flashbacks of the characters pre-apocalypse, perhaps even focused on one character per episode, like Lost, it would've done wonders for every characters' development. Of course, people would feel they were copying Lost's style, but imo that was one of the key reasons people cared for all the Lost characters. It might seem like a crutch in storytelling, but it works, and it's a good juxtaposition to show the characters before and after.

As an example of how effective flashbacks are, Abe became so much more fully fleshed out when we got a total of 5 minutes of flashback time for him. And that was still post-apocalypse, but it let us know who he was and where he came from.

[bishnykfan]

Well said remi. It's one of the problems of the show. To many characters to ever be able to fully develop them all. And when they do, it probably means they are doing it just to kill them off. The characters have such great potential, but as long as they only focus on Rick and Daryl and to a lesser extent Michonne, we will never connect to he others. They could all be such rich characters but we will never get to invest in them.

Its one of the reasons I loved the show Lost. As convoluted as the show got at the end, the show was great at developing so many different characters throughout and really making you care about them. TWD hasn't found that formula yet.

I actually think if they showed flashbacks of the characters pre-apocalypse, perhaps even focused on one character per episode, like Lost, it would've done wonders for every characters' development. Of course, people would feel they were copying Lost's style, but imo that was one of the key reasons people cared for all the Lost characters. It might seem like a crutch in storytelling, but it works, and it's a good juxtaposition to show the characters before and after.

As an example of how effective flashbacks are, Abe became so much more fully fleshed out when we got a total of 5 minutes of flashback time for him. And that was still post-apocalypse, but it let us know who he was and where he came from.

lost was great because of those flashbacks. Walking dead could've done something similar to develop the characters. They did it with Abraham and even Michonne and it was effective. I still really like the show, but it could be better.

[Barcs]

I actually think if they showed flashbacks of the characters pre-apocalypse, perhaps even focused on one character per episode, like Lost, it would've done wonders for every characters' development. Of course, people would feel they were copying Lost's style, but imo that was one of the key reasons people cared for all the Lost characters. It might seem like a crutch in storytelling, but it works, and it's a good juxtaposition to show the characters before and after.

The only problem with that is you need good writers and longer seasons to make it work. Lost was amazing at that and drew parallels between their past flashbacks and their present predicaments which is why that show was one of the best shows of all time at character development. They have had some flashbacks in TWD, but it has been rare. If TWD did flashbacks every episode, there would be hardly any time for the real show since they only do a weak 12 episodes a season and split them up into 2 six episode parts. Maybe it's just me, but it seems TV was so much better when shows had 20+ episodes a season but the writers strike ruined everything. Now it's all bare minimum and virtually every plot in every show now is rushed. Imagine Breaking bad with 20 episodes a season? It could have been epic (not that it wasn't awesome).

[boomann21]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LBlJCnKQnQ[/youtube]

Sasha makes my loins yearn, did y'all see that head shot? I can see where the critics are coming from, but I expect more development of the cast now that they will not be running from their lives every episode.

[kane]

this has become a show i watch out of habit because its set on my DVR but the next step is deleting it from my season pass, its turned into a lazy soap opera where the same things keep happening season after season like its groundhogs day with zombies (wait that would be amazing....)

the show has become stale and stuck in a rut they need to ditch the comic story line and make their own, comics make bad TV shows because nothing ever happens its like the simpsons the plot never has any progression. after reading many spoilers i know where this story is going and its nowhere the best plot was in the first season where they found the CDC guy and were working on a cure or to try and find out how this started..... something to look forward to not just surviving in a world where one day zombies just stumble around and someone rolls their eyes and sticks a knife in its head or when the plot demands it a super ninja zombie teleports behind someone as they are in a daze and get bit on the arm

[prophet_of_rage]

The source material is the problem. The Walking Dead is a bad comic book. The end of this season is probably going to be the extremely crappy issue 83 of TWD. After the prison, the comic got really dumb and the next major villain, in my opinion, is the dumbest of all. And then when he's vanquished the comic gets really really really bad.

You have poor source material you have a bad product.

[boomann21]

I disagree with both of the above statements and so do 14 million other people. I feel as the story is transitioning from them being on the run to a more civilized setting which can lead to better character development and give the writers a chance to explore these character's in more depth. I am also a avid fan so I might be coming off as a homer, but I am intrigued by where the story is going.

[ITGM]

Last night's episode was the 1st good one of this new half season and it makes me very curious to see what will happen next.

Personally, I thought Tyrese's last episode was brilliant.

[boomann21]

Last night's episode was the 1st good one of this new half season and it makes me very curious to see what will happen next.

Personally, I thought Tyrese's last episode was brilliant.

I have three complaints about the Tyrese dying episode because a few things made little to no sense. First and foremost how did "Everybody Hates Chris" outrun him when he made a mad dash for his house, Secondly with all of the due diligence that Tyrese did before they entered the house why didn't he check the bathroom before he started just gazing at pictures. He should of heard that Zombie walking up on him. For the guy who smashed 50 plus zombies when he was surrounded to be taken down by one lonely child walker was a let down. The guy suppose to have went out like a solider. It was almost as bad as when he got shot by Mike on the Wire when he was trying to get the young killer off the corner.

[kane]

I disagree with both of the above statements and so do 14 million other people. I feel as the story is transitioning from them being on the run to a more civilized setting which can lead to better character development and give the writers a chance to explore these character's in more depth. I am also a avid fan so I might be coming off as a homer, but I am intrigued by where the story is going.

Because high ratings means a good show right better character development? For what only to be killed off in the most idiotic way possible... Sorry but for me a show needs a story arc and this is to close to the comics witch makes it a soap opera not a great TV show, its not hard to get ratings being the only show on with zombies

[prophet_of_rage]

I disagree with both of the above statements and so do 14 million other people. I feel as the story is transitioning from them being on the run to a more civilized setting which can lead to better character development and give the writers a chance to explore these character's in more depth. I am also a avid fan so I might be coming off as a homer, but I am intrigued by where the story is going.

Here's what happens in the source material.

Spoiler:

They settle in The Alexandria Safe Zone and Rick becomes a leader there. A zombie horde gets in and in the chaos KArl gets half his face shot off. Then we meet Negan who leads a war against Rick's camp. Negan suddenly realises in the middle of a fist fight to the death with Rick that the idea of bartering that Rick is suggesting could work and stops fighting for Rick to sneak attac him for the win. Rick locks up Negan instead of killing him and then the book time jumps two years to where it is just Rick, Carl and Andrea. Everybody else has disappeared in a way not explained and the new threat comes from humans living out in the wild wearing zombie skins to hide among the dead. That's the source material. Trust me, it isn't good.