‘Fear The Walking Dead’ Slays Cable Record – The Daily Double Talk
By Tommy McGrew
AMC’s newest smash hit has arrived. Fear the Walking Dead premiered Sunday night and not only did it crush it’s times slot but it crushed the record for most viewers for a cable series premiere with a whooping 10.3 million people. It looks like the zombie trend might not be a trend at all it’s now just a culture in of itself. Now, don’t get me wrong I’m thrilled to see genre programming breaking records and getting world wide attention, but I have so bones to pick with the episode itself. As I watched the pilot episode of Fear the Walking Dead the only thing that came to mind was the first episode of True Detective’s second season. The two episodes had one thing in common. They were pointlessly boring. When I watch a Walking Dead show I want to see dead motherfuckers walking, not the guy from Training Day (Cliff Curtis) or that chick from Gone Girl (Kim Dickens), but zombies. I know we have to build a story and get to know out main characters and all but shit, we get that from the original Walking Dead. I was kind of hoping for a balls to wall first episode to let the audience know this wasn’t your grandpas Walking Dead. That was totally wishful thinking on my part. The new series is just as much of a slow burn as the original if not more so. It played out and was filmed like an indie drama looking to win sundance with zombie apocalypse undertone. I felt they could have balanced this in a better way. We see characters doing flat out dumb, illogical things that seen to be there simply to fill out the hour and a half running time. Unlike True Detective S2 though, FTWD lets it’s audience know that shit will indeed hit the fan. TD2 had us lingering that entire first episode only to have some real True Dectective shit happen the last minute of the episode. I was afraid FTWD was gonna do the same but it recovered in it’s last 15 minutes and I actually am excited to see where it goes. I like how it feels like an entirely different franchise and I especially like one actor in particular, Frank Dillane who plays Nick and is real life son of Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane) is an absolute stand out in the show. This guy is destined for great things in Hollywood and it definitely doesn’t hurt that he not only looks, but has very similar mannerisms to one Johnny Depp ( the shit is uncanny in some scenes) but that’s not a bad actor to model yourself after. Bottom line the show has enough going for it for me to continue watching, hopefully it can maintain six or seven more episodes.
[Source: TVGuide]