The Walking Dead: AMC-channel series Anyone psyched?

[IAM]

Does anyone else here hate previews for the next episode? I already know I'm going to watch it but I don't want ANY informatin about the episode so when watching 'the talking dead' or something I change the channel to miss the spoiler. Am I the only one?

 

[Murky]

The thing is, it does not make it fun - at least, not for me - but irritating.

It's like an alt-history.
"What if zombies/dragons/Martian invaders were real?" would be an interesting alt-hist.
"What if x were real AND most people suddenly started acting without rhyme and reason?" - not so much.

But that is just me...

I'm sure it's not everyone's cup-of-tee. The story is what makes TWD interesting. If wasn't for the drama/soap-opera it would be just another senseless zombie flick.

 

[NovaKart]

I wonder what they do for water. Where I live at the moment the water sometimes goes out for days because it's a very 3rd world country and it's a really dry climate. We keep 3 plastic barrels and about 30 medium size water bottles. Our water went out a couple days ago and we're already almost out. And this is not even including drinking water. And we're just 3 people.

I would think the clean running water supply would have tapped out there. I guess there's a lot of things you should just not think about too much. It just got me thinking about it last night while watching the episode.

 

[IAM]

I wonder what they do for water. Where I live at the moment the water sometimes goes out for days because it's a very 3rd world country and it's a really dry climate. We keep 3 plastic barrels and about 30 medium size water bottles. Our water went out a couple days ago and we're already almost out. And this is not even including drinking water. And we're just 3 people.

I would think the clean running water supply would have tapped out there. I guess there's a lot of things you should just not think about too much. It just got me thinking about it last night while watching the episode.

Average rainfall in georgia is about 50 inches (edit: per year). rainwater colloction using existing gutter systems on roofs would take care of most needs. Some water like bath water can be reused to water fruit trees etc. Plus there is a lot of stored water in towns if you remove the thousands that use to live there. For one: each house would likely have a hot water heater with 50 gallons of potable water. There are plenty of other sources including wells and botted water from stores, etc.

 

[NovaKart]

It would be a really laborious process. I can order more water if I have to but I have to get water to flush the toilet, wash clothes, wash my hands, everything.

 

[LucyDuke]

I have a lot of complaints. The biggest is that previouslies are horrible spoilers. The rest are mostly just gripes about lazy writing. It would be so easy to make this show so much better, it makes me sad that they don't try just a little bit harder.

Aside from gripes, great episode. Great acting, great sets. No crappy cliffhanger and great to get away from the main drama for once. Glad Michonne is finally becoming a character, though it'd've been nice to start that ten episodes ago.

What was supposed to have killed the hitchhiker?

So is the strategy to just wither to nothing but an old one legged man? I got the mistrust thing, but that has to be balanced with actually establishing a self sufficient group. Why the he'll have they not started growing crops yet besides Rick ensuring they have no able bodied people capable of doing so?

And they STILL haven't attempted to go to any military site.

When exactly were they supposed to start growing crops?

Shane wanted to go to Fort Benning, Dave and Tony told us it was overrun. You really think any other site wouldn't be overrun and picked clean by now?

what if he was just cast out by his group five minutes before?

what bugged me the most about this episode is that not telling the audience what is at stake is terrible story telling most of the time. (weapons, the photograph)

It's your own fault if you couldn't figure out this trip was a hunt for weapons. We weren't supposed to know Carl was going for a photograph.

What would you do if world was overrun by zombies?

According to the creators of this show, you would focus all your efforts (and your scarce resources) to kill other survivors in a battle over...

... wait, I forgot. Over what, exactly?

Yeah, I don't get this show.

After spending nine months on the road trying to not die, yeah, after you found a safe gig you'd probably try pretty hard to kill anyone trying to destroy your safe gig.

It might have been a little more interesting if we had more backstory on this character. I hate when writers just throw some random goober into the story for no other reason than to ignore them then kill them later.

Eh, he wasn't a character, he was a prop.

Does anyone else here hate previews for the next episode? I already know I'm going to watch it but I don't want ANY informatin about the episode so when watching 'the talking dead' or something I change the channel to miss the spoiler. Am I the only one?

I do want information about the next episode, and I'm never given any. It's maybe sixty seconds of the most boring part of the beginning of the next one, usually from the teaser, always absolutely worthless. For this episode it had been the trio in the car driving down the road and silently ignoring the hitchhiker. Nothing of any value at all.

On the other hand, the previouslies are actual spoilers. Hey, remember that guy from two seasons ago? Remember him? Oh, no reason.

 

[Patroklos]

I guess you can read into it whatever you want. They didn't really give us enough info on the guy to determine why he is still alive. Did his camp just get over-run? We don't know.

Honestly I see no reason why you can't survive alone. Actually, given the propensity for the two groups we have details of to get their members killed via the stupidity I would rather be alone. Honestly these guys are just horrible decision after horrible decision.

When exactly were they supposed to start growing crops?

The second They took procession of several fields enclosed in high security fencing. They have been there for at least 6 months now and could have turned a least a winter crop, probably a spring crop too as they only recently had hostilities. Herschel ran a ranch, he knows how.

The characters mention this themselves when they first get to the prison. The fact is the group has done nothing to improve the prison in their time there besides clear the block they use. It looks the same as when they got there.

Shane wanted to go to Fort Benning, Dave and Tony told us it was overrun. You really think any other site wouldn't be overrun and picked clean by now?

It's entirely ******** that any military site could be over run period based on what we have seen. I am sure many may have been abandoned but the idea that every one was overrun is ridiculous. How do zombies beat a tank? Each one carries 10,000 secondary rounds each plus their main armament. Forget the tank, how the hell do they beat chain link fences and barbed wire?!? Hesco barriers for the win.

Let me introduce you a zombie's worst nightmare:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:M1_Grizzly_2.jpg

Or...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/usaasc/8430188806/

One per metropolitain area should work gangbusters.

 

[Kennigit]

i know its not canon and I forget if it was already posted here but you can pretend scenarios that can fit better. If you want maybe the virus infected and zombified like 70% of the population via being airborne, then the nonimmediate zombified 30% the virus is just latent until death (it is cannon that everyone has it). You can also convince yourself that is why so many "family" groups generally exist, as there could have been some genetic component (and why new babies don't get zombified themselves immediately, though also maybe antibodies go in utero who knows; as well as actual open wound from zombie turns you via the virus mutating in the zombie's saliva and from zombie to zombie changes compared to the airborne version, where the zombie virus in current zombies can't live in air without a host body i.e. zombie. just to try to cover bases)

because yeah, there are way too many guns/firepower for actual zombies to come close to any military base, but maybe if high amounts of a military base just get caught immediately internally things destabilize.

heck the show centered around rick waking up so the history of the outbreak wasn't super elaborated (though maybe the cdc dude said the history, just who wants to remember/accurately follow that stuff)

 

[ace99]

I've never really gotten over the initial disappointment of the first two episodes when Rick was in the tank and didn't run zombies over. Why writers? Why??

 

[IAM]

It's entirely ******** that any military site could be over run period based on what we have seen. I am sure many may have been abandoned but the idea that every one was overrun is ridiculous. How do zombies beat a tank? Each one carries 10,000 secondary rounds each plus their main armament. Forget the tank, how the hell do they beat chain link fences and barbed wire?!? Hesco barriers for the win.

once you die u turn zombie. if people were unaware of this then no place would be safe. one guy losses his family and overdoses...

 

[Carras Dad]

It's your own fault if you couldn't figure out this trip was a hunt for weapons. We weren't supposed to know Carl was going for a photograph.

my own fault with the the weapons? maybe so.

also, i do understand we were'nt supposed to know what carl was going for. i just think it was a bad decision by the writers, because i, for one, find it hard to emotionally invest in something i see when i dont know/understand what is at stake.
was like watching a game of baseball for me.

There is a distinct difference between "suspense" and "surprise," and yet many pictures continually confuse the two. I'll explain what I mean.

We are now having a very innocent little chat. Let's suppose that there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, "Boom!" There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it has seen an absolutely ordinary scene, of no special consequence. Now, let us take a suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it, probably because they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware the bomb is going to explode at one o'clock and there is a clock in the decor. The public can see that it is a quarter to one. In these conditions, the same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the scene. The audience is longing to warn the characters on the screen: "You shouldn't be talking about such trivial matters. There is a bomb beneath you and it is about to explode!"

In the first case we have given the public fifteen seconds of surprise at the moment of the explosion. In the second we have provided them with fifteen minutes of suspense. The conclusion is that whenever possible the public must be informed. Except when the surprise is a twist, that is, when the unexpected ending is, in itself, the highlight of the story.

http://www.doctorsyntax.net/2010/09/alfred-hitchcocks-bomb-suspense.html

 

[LucyDuke]

The second They took procession of several fields enclosed in high security fencing. They have been there for at least 6 months now and could have turned a least a winter crop, probably a spring crop too as they only recently had hostilities. Herschel ran a ranch, he knows how.

The characters mention this themselves when they first get to the prison. The fact is the group has done nothing to improve the prison in their time there besides clear the block they use. It looks the same as when they got there.

Six months? What are you talking about? They've been there less than a month. And it's not as though they've had their feet up for any of that time.

It's entirely ******** that any military site could be over run period based on what we have seen. I am sure many may have been abandoned but the idea that every one was overrun is ridiculous. How do zombies beat a tank? Each one carries 10,000 secondary rounds each plus their main armament. Forget the tank, how the hell do they beat chain link fences and barbed wire?!? Hesco barriers for the win.

We're still talking about the show about reanimated corpses, right?

I don't care enough to fanwank it. But my point was if Fort Benning is overrun, how well could any other have fared?

 

[TheLastOne36]

Roughly six months passed during the comic book I believe.

 

[Murky]

In a zombie apocalypse, as soon as you start analyzing it the plot typically falls apart. Firstly, the biological impossibility of anything from this earth animating dead people. Anything short of something engineered or supernatural (i.e. not found in nature) just wouldn't cut it. Secondly, mindless zombies would most likely fail to take over because they are mindless. If they can so easily fall victim to Morgan's traps how would they do against a strong military response?

The main strengths they supposedly have are that 1) it takes head trauma to destroy them. 2) large numbers from a quickly spread pandemic. 3) biting a living person dooms the victim to become a future zombie. 4) If a person knows a bit means you're terminal ill you might go in to denial or try to hide it from others making it more likely you would spread it.

To play devils advocate a bit; it's not hard to imagine a scenario where the zombie horde takes over. Several soldiers were off base and lacking good information and become infected. They return to their base but don't tell anyone until the symptoms are advanced. This quickly spreads the infection on base and reduces the military's ability to respond adequately to the outbreak. The walls the were previously keeping the zombie hordes out are now keeping the living inside with the dead. The stress of seeing friends and family become victims causes key decision makers to lose their minds. So they stop caring and allow the plague to spread.

 

[ace99]

^ Which is why rabies is a rampant and widespread disease.....or not.

Biting someone is a terribly inefficient way to transmit anything.

 

[Murky]

^ Which is why rabies is a rampant and widespread disease.....or not.

Biting someone is a terribly inefficient way to transmit anything.

On the TWD they are infected without being bitten (unexplained) so there supposedly was some other method of transmitting the disease. So there's first one disease that reanimated the dead that everyone gets. Then the zombies biting the living causes another deadly sickness that kills the victim so they the other thing can then reanimate them. Maybe some sort of nanotechnology could work for the first disease. Then the biting disease is some combination of bacteria that only grows to infectious levels in a zombie.

 

[IAM]

komodo dragons kill with an infectious bite and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komodo_dragon

some mutated strain of rabies seems about as close as we have to a zombie acting pandemic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabies

 

[Yeekim]

After spending nine months on the road trying to not die, yeah, after you found a safe gig you'd probably try pretty hard to kill anyone trying to destroy your safe gig.

I'm not talking about Rick's group having to protect himself against the Governor, I am talking about the whole paradigm - all survivors splitting into groups who try to avoid or rob and kill each other.

Another survivor who can potentially watch your back, help to clean an area from zombies, water your crops or know some useful craft should be worth more than anything I could imagine can be robbed from him/her. What, after 98% of the population has zombified, there is suddenly a shortage of weapons and tools?

Well, apparently the brain-attacking virus also causes extreme paranoia and poor judgement in living.

I get what Murky said about the show needing conflict between humans, I just find it rather unconvincingly scripted.

 

[Cynovolans]

Well, apparently the brain-attacking virus also causes extreme paranoia and poor judgement in living.

I get what Murky said about the show needing conflict between humans, I just find it rather unconvincingly scripted.

Maybe its because I just read Lord of the Flies, but I find it perfectly believable in a zombified world the few survivors would be paranoid and fighting each other instead of holding hands and singing kumbaya.

EDIT: After thinking some more, I think you have a point that other people would be too important to scare off. I just wouldn't be surprised if someone who has survived a year into a zombie apocalypse would be paranoid and unstable.

 

[Patroklos]

Six months? What are you talking about? They've been there less than a month. And it's not as though they've had their feet up for any of that time.

The wintered over in the prison, it's the break between seasons. But honestly they haven't eeven taken the truck out to get furniture. These people are supposed to be trying to survive and rebuild some sort of life but everything they do does not further either of these ends.

We're still talking about the show about reanimated corpses, right?

I don't care enough to fanwank it. But my point was if Fort Benning is overrun, how well could any other have fared?

As well as any place with an impervious armored zombie dozer with 100000 machine gun rounds and fuel in one tank for 250 miles of zombie moguls.

Fort Benning has eight brigades and one ranger regiment stationed there. One of those is an armor brigade. The point is if even 10% survived whatever it was that is never explained or seen that could cause such casualties that's STILL enough to go ballistic of every zombie in GA. He'll, just that small group of NG we see taken out has enough fire power to be immune to thousands of zombies attacking at once (which means now Woodbury is too).

Damn, just fuel up a backhoe and dig a trench, throw in some barbed razorwire at the bottom, and you are set. You can fifty cal them all with enfilading fire in the morning if you feel the need.

My point is a good story teller needs to have good reasons for why things are the way they are. But even if Fort Benning is over run, why would you still not go there? There would be no more zombies there than any other town. Looking for weapons? Well how about picking up a tank if the soldiers there don't need it any more?