quote:

Living in the same universe as The Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead is a gritty drama that explores the onset of the undead apocalypse through the lens of a fractured family. Set in a city where people come to escape, shield secrets, and bury their pasts, a mysterious outbreak threatens to disrupt what little stability high school guidance counselor Madison Clark and English teacher Travis Manawa have managed to assemble. The everyday pressure of blending two families while dealing with resentful, escapist, and strung out children takes a back seat when society begins to break down. A forced evolution, a necessary survival of the fittest takes hold, and our dysfunctional family must either reinvent themselves or embrace their darker histories

quote:

When Civilization Ends, it ends fast

FlamingLiberal posted:

IGN's review of the pilot seems to confirm a lot of people's fears that the teenagers really drag everything down. I guess we'll see on Sunday.

quote:

1. The cause of the outbreak. Just as in Kirkman's comics — which also won't ever reveal what caused the world as we know it to crumble — neither Fear nor the flagship drama will ever explain what happened to civilization. Erickson, despite his best pitches to Kirkman to touch on the subject, was shot down. "I had a couple of early pitches that touched on that and Robert shut me down. For him, it's never been about what caused it; it's always been about the impact it has on people," Erickson says.

2. Crossover with any of the original Walking Dead cast. Asked if Fear could provide a way for beloved characters from the comics who were killed off too soon on the AMC series (ahem, Andrea), Erickson said the "idea of seeing an ancillary character who happened to be in Los Angeles and got out and landed in Georgia is interesting. But I don't think we're going to do that. There's no plan to see any original characters."

3. A cure. Just like with The Walking Dead, finding a cure at the onset of the outbreak isn't high on Fear's agenda. "No cause, crossover or cure," Erickson insisted.

4. The CDC. That also includes seeing Noah Emmerich reprise his role as CDC good guy Edwin Jenner. While Kirkman has said that the season one CDC episode is among his biggest regrets, an early script for Fear included a scene in which Dr. Candace Jenner — aka Test Subject 19 and played by Claire Bronson on the flagship — was introduced. The character previously worked with Jenner at the CDC before being infected and ultimately killed. The idea of bringing her on, however, didn't last long with Kirkman. "We won't see the CDC," Erickson says. "When we have two narratives living under the same umbrella mythology, the instinct would be to bring those two stories together and to conflate them. From a creative standpoint, I think we have enough story that we'll be able to ride on for quite some time."

5. Politicians. "We definitely will not see politicians and generals trying to coordinate and figure out what this is," Erickson says. "It's not World War Z. One of the things we will stay true to as it pertains to the comics, as it pertains to the original show is the blue-collar quality. These are folks that are people you would see on the street on any given moment. People that we know. Teachers, guidance counselors, wannabe nurses, aspiring nurses."


6. Zombies who are easy to kill. Erickson said one of Kirkman's notes for Fear was that the zombies be different than how they were first seen on the original show. With the early onset of the outbreak, skulls will still be hard and the point, Erickson said, is to see a character trying to stab a walker in the head and not be able to penetrate the skull. "The point was it's hard physically to kill somebody," he said.

7. The term "walkers." The original series — like the comics —avoids using the term "zombie" and Fear will avoid using the flagship's default term of "walkers." "We don't call them walkers, we're coming up with as much cool West Coat verbage as we can," Erickson said.

moist turtleneck posted:

So no Candace Jenner. That doesn't rule out Caitlyn Jenner, though.

zoux posted:

we're coming up with as much cool West Coat verbage as we can

boom boom boom posted:

oh god

Bulkiest Toaster posted:

Bulkiest Toaster posted:

Bulkiest Toaster posted:

precision posted:

You just know someone at AMC has been waiting years for someone to listen to his constant refrain of "what if we made the zombies sexy?"

Tellah posted:

Everything about this image screams low-budget cash-grab.

"The zombies are less decomposed" hype translates to "the makeup work from the original show's pilot was pretty effort-intensive."

Tellah posted:

Everything about this image screams low-budget cash-grab.

"The zombies are less decomposed" hype translates to "the makeup work from the original show's pilot was pretty effort-intensive."

Tellah posted:

Everything about this image screams low-budget cash-grab.

"The zombies are less decomposed" hype translates to "the makeup work from the original show's pilot was pretty effort-intensive."

boom boom boom posted:

"no cure" is a good rule. I mean, that would undermine the whole idea behind the franchise. And a plotline about people trying to find a cure would be boring as gently caress, because the audience knows they won't succeed.

"no politicians" makes sense too. This show is about a family going through the zombie thing. A side story about the Mayor of LA trying to organize stuff would be a distraction from that.

FlamingLiberal posted:

They're certainly shoving this show into a corner before it even airs. God forbid you let the writers breathe a bit.

Bulkiest Toaster posted:

I think we should see at least some plot about how the authorities are handling the outbreak. Maybe they could have the characters go to a secure compound run by CDC/FEMA/military authority. We wouldn't see what the president is doing but we could at least see that the authorities are trying to keep things together.

Tellah posted:

"We definitely will not see politicians and generals trying to coordinate and figure out what this is,"

Open Source Idiom posted:

I think the "No Origin" angle is basically bunk -- that'd have given this show a sense of vitality and necessity. Having the characters play detective, attempting to work out where the virus came from while everything fell down around their ears, would be a decent hook. You'd have to structure it so it wasn't just a dumb shell game, but it could work.

Open Source Idiom posted:

Even if it didn't do that, it's got to do something to make itself worthwhile. This isn't just a spin-off, it's effectively a reboot that's running at the same time as its parent show. The level of shameless cash grabbing going on here is pretty deplorable, even though it's totally up AMC's alley.

boom boom boom posted:

It's not a reboot at all, it's not changing anything or invalidating anything from The Walking Dead. It's other characters in the same world doing different things somewhere else, it's exactly a spin-off. Frasier was not a reboot of Cheers. What are you talking about?

Open Source Idiom posted:

Technically it's not a spin-off either, since it's not spinning any character off into their own show.

I mean, seriously, it's a show about a family and a rag tag bunch of people attempting to survive a zombie apocalypse. That's basically the exact same premise of the other show. Sure, it's not a "reboot" in the classical sense, but there's not too much of a difference from where I'm standing.

Open Source Idiom posted:

Technically it's not a spin-off either, since it's not spinning any character off into their own show.

Forbes.com posted:

The opening episode is a full hour long without commercials, so you get a lot of content compared to the typical 42 minutes or so. That’s nice in a way, though I feel like it could have been shorter. A lot goes on in that hour, but it still feels like nothing much actually happens.

boom boom boom posted:

Tellah posted:

"We definitely will not see politicians and generals trying to coordinate and figure out what this is,"

So that doesn't rule out characters going to ad-hoc shelters or soldiers trying to protect a building or something. Just that we won't see people in positions of power making decisions or what have you.

C'mon, people. I know everyone is very excited to hate this show but let's at least wait until the first episode airs before we start inventing things to hate.