Be Excellent To Each Other

Does it though?

Again, I've not seen it yet, but from the sounds of it, the plot very closely follows the comic book. In which case, maybe you're meant to think that maybe Rick was abandoned in the hospital so his wife could run off with his partner?

Zio -

Sorry, I should have been clearer. I was referring to the fact that an awful lot was left unexplained or inexplicable, the characters were barely formed and the principal came across as a dumbass. The pacing was probably slightly too slow and the story needed to progress a bit further in that opening episode. I get the fact that it gets better, my argument is that that's a bit of a reach when you view the opening episode in isolation of any knowledge of the story from the comics. In other words, if you know nothing about the story then the first episode wasn't as good as it could have been, which is why I think it's risky to assume it'll run and run. American network TV is bloody ruthless and if this halves it's viewing figures after the first episode and doesn't recover it probably won't get recommissioned, regardless of how good you think it is or how much you love the comics.

I am going to watch the next couple of episodes, but that's down to you lot more than the opening episode if I'm honest, and I don't think my opinion on this is so wrongheaded to not be a possibility just because you lot love it.

I think basically though it's zombies and there aren't any there zombie series. There's a huge appetite for it and it's already much better than it needs to be. Imagine if there was only one series about vampires, you could churn out any old shite and it would run and run.

Ah, I believe you may be correct, now I think about it. Haven't read the first few issues in a long time now and I really should, as I always slightly preferred Tony Moore's artwork to Charlie Adlard's.

Just finished watching episode 1. Fucking brilliant.

I agree with the Zardominator.

I enjoyed that a whole lot.

You're absolutely right.

I concur with this sense of enjoyment - t' was very good! I wonder how much they'll cover in these six episodes and whether or not the TV series story will deviate from the comics?

Watched it, thought it was good. Don't care about comics.

Watched it, thought it was good but very slow. Picked up at the end though.
Comics shmomics.

Sky+d it, not home'til Monday night. Can't wait to watch it. Also got two episodes of The Event to catch up on, anyone else been watching that?

So last week on holiday I read the first 66 issues of the comic (for some reason issue 67 didn't transfer so I have a few issues still to read) and I caught up with the first episode of this and have the 2nd 'waiting'.

On the whole very impressive , a few twists from the comic but nothing much





I spotted (heard) this as well and had a double take of - did that really happen ?

Who first came up with the old "Wake up from a coma and the world's gone to pot" plot device? My puny human brain thinks it was Wyndham in "Day of the Triffids" but I'd be happy to be corrected. It seems a slightly lazy way to skip all that "World is falling to shit" story and jump straight to "World has fallen to shit". But I liked Episode 1 a lot, mainly because I like zombies I think. Although the wife did spend much of the time shouting "Watch out Egg!" at the TV.

Well, it is. But also it allows them to shorthand through the "ZOMG I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS IS HAPPENING" stuff which (let's be honest) we've seen hundreds of times and into the more novel "we need to find a way to survive in this hostile new world" territory.

I always think the "surviving in a post-zombie world" bit is more interesting, and I guess having a protagonist who is as new to the situation as the viewer allows for back-story explanation by other characters without it sounding odd. They've been fairly good with that so far - haven't laid it on too thick. Courtyards full of corpses tell you pretty much everything without having to spell it out.

Yeah, I've watched the first two and it seems OK so far.
It does stand a high chance of going the way of Flash Forward, i.e. completely stagnating once the basic plot device is established,

(edit, oops, thought this was general purpose TV!)

Novel?

Mad Max 2 and 3, Land Of The Dead, Book of Eli, The Road, etc etc.

Within the zombie subgenre, yes.

Hmmm. Well, Land and Dawn would cover that, I'd say. Land moreso, admittedly, but the original Dawn was very much about getting on with things with zombies wandering around. Hell, come to that, so was Day.

EDIT - also, Resident Evil: Apocolypse.

Zombieland
28 days later

I'd say it is rarer to see the zombie apocalypse actually starting up these days!

OBJECTION! I'll give you Zombieland, but 28 Days Later is so soon after the Rage outbreak as to effectively be during it.

Also, I think the Doc is getting at things showing how society continues long-term after the zombie-lypse, rather than individuals, necessarily. Zombieland, for instance, is really about individual survival. I think the only film that's done a proper "what happens to human society after the zombies, what replaces capitalism and government and nations" is Land of the Dead. And that was shite.

I was going to say "28 weeks". Sean of the Dead also has that section at the end about life after it's all calmed down again (everything basically back to normal) but this is probably scraping the bottom of the barrel.

If only Dimrill were here ;(

Bugger, forgot to listen out for that! I recorded it though, so I'll have another look when I get home.

That's after the zombies have all died out, though, and so it's more of an "oh noes! it's another outbreak!"

[/quote]but this is probably scraping the bottom of the barrel.[/quote]

Indeed.

I'm going to refer back to Day of the Triffids again ( contentious idea : Triffids ARE zombies ). That went on for years and years after everything went to pot. Society was almost back on it's feet again, albeit only on the Isle of Wight.

Very true, but they weren't zombies. Having lost the argument, Doc has moved the goalposts.

Hehe! That's the first thing I thought of.

Yeah, I think the survivalist stuff is more interesting than being caught up in the initial outbreak, that's more of a horror fest isn't it? Being chased by zombz and running round like a dick without a game plan and being all sentimental about shit. I wouldn't trust anyone, you never know if they're going to get you killed by doing something retarded and the survivors in this so far aren't paranoid or selfish enough for my liking.

That's what I liked about Zombieland, I thought that was ace. There was a fair bit of paranoia in that too, every man for himself thinking, which is probably what it would be like. I want to know what to do in the face of zombie apocalypse because it's only a matter of time....

I object to that objection. It's a month on, and almost everyone is dead or nuts.
He wakes up, and he's on his own.

One month? Hardly enough for mankind (or at least Britain) to have settled into a new paradigm of society.

You wouldn't understand. You weren't at the Lakes meet, man.

I said mankind, Z.

Living on the IoM probably helps!

What, for practice?

Shut it west country boy.

We'd be fucked if they don't close the ports at the very first sign of anything being wrong (they were pretty on the ball with foot and mouth disease a few years ago though) as there is literally nowhere to go that the zombies wouldn't find you eventually, although I'd be more worried about survivors in the long term.

I think I'd prefer a zombie apocalypse to any other tbh, at least there'd be something outside keeping all the other people in....

Isn't that what the film was about, though?

It depends what sort of zombies you have - if you have the Land of the Dead ones, then anyone who dies turns into a zombie, whether they've been bitten or not*, so you'd be fucked regardless.



Eh? Sorry, I'm being dense. Is it about the fact society hadn't had enough time to absorb the effect of teh Rage virus and settle into whatever long term pattern was going to emerge?


*Which is also another reason why that film's fucking stupid.

See also, appositely:

, according to Doc.

Spoilers!

Quite. I have only read books one and two, so not clear why or how the zombies turned up yet. But being bitten DOES turn you into one, so how that would square with

Fucking spoilers again!

"being bitten by a zombie turns you into a zombie" isn't a spoiler is it? That's like "the sky's blue"!

So just to recap: up the thread I mention an quirk of how The Walking Dead works, which I spoiler tag. Kalmar mentions it in open text, then amends that after I nudge him. You agree with my nudging that this constitutes a spoiler.

Then you restate the spoiler in the last part of your post three up from this one, then you claim that's not a spoiler at all?

I'm bitter that Kalmar has spoiled the books for me.

She played Dr Kerry Weaver in ER and I think the first gay female character I ever noticed on TV. Especially when she started getting gay with Elizabeth Mitchell aka Juliet from Lost.

Anyway, sorry, Zombies? Hopefully I'll get to watch this when I get home later. Looking forward to it!

Has anyone e.g. Craster recorded this on their Media Centre and is able to make a copy available for download?

I've got it if you want it.

I will love you forever (I already do, so this isn't much of an offer, to be fair)