What Happened to Fear The Walking Dead?

AMC’s Fear The Walking Dead returns on Sunday for its fourth season, and I’m of two minds about it.  First, it provides continuous coverage of delicious Zombie action after The Walking Dead wraps up its season.  Bullets, hatchets, machetes, it uses them all to good effect against the “infected” hordes.

But secondly, this show sucks, and it really had no reason to considering how good The Walking Dead was.  Of course I have to be responsible for my own expectations.  I had high hopes, and an idea of who the characters should be and what they should be doing.  And sure, one’s show-in-your-mind is always better than an actual show, but good lord, did they work hard to make sure every single character was unlikable and every situation ridiculous.

Of course the handwriting was on the wall all the way back in season one.  The show decided to take a slow burn to reveal what was actually going on, so in episode 3 the families think they are on the run from some sort of massive civil disorder, perhaps inflamed by videos showing cops “killing” rioters who are actually undead.  By the very next episode, they are back in their neighborhood being protected by the National Guard, and somehow, and some way, everyone seems to understand that the dead are coming back to life to chow down on the living.

So when did that realization happen?

I thought the entire point of doing a sequel going back to the beginning of the Apocalypse and show how it started, and what happened.  None of that is really done.  The entire realization of omigod the dead are really coming back to life this isn’t a joke what is happening is this the work of god or the devil and are there souls trapped and why oh why….  None of that happens.

And the military…this may just be a pet peeve of mine, but it’s clear that WD creators Greg Nicotero, Robert Kirkman, and Dave Erikson hate the military.  This may be a common attitude among Hollywood creators but it doesn’t usually leech out into the product.  In this case, the military and military personnel are constantly presented in a bad light.

In short, with unlikable characters and uninteresting situations, Fear is a bad show and after coasting on TWD for years, is finally realizing the ratings danger it’s in by providing a bit of stunt casting.  Lennie James, aka “Morgan” will be doing a stint on FTWD.  Since Morgan’s story has (through flashbacks) been fairly well told since the zombie virus, and doesn’t include a trip to Texas, that means they are either going to ignore the actual TWD history and just do their own thing, or have Morgan in the “present” and time jump the show a few years.

Oh time jumps; the gimmick that has more than worn out its welcome in one hour episodic drama.  With all of my complaints, I’m still planning on watching the show.  True, I may be hate watching, but it still counts in the ratings I suppose.  However, with the possibility that there could be further Walking Dead spinoffs in the future, my heart leaps and hope springs eternal.  Maybe this time they will get it right…