Are there any "Walking Dead" fans here at TFB? I really want to discuss the show with someone!! Season 1 is available for streaming on Netflix; season 2 can be streamed on Amazon as each episode is released on AMC. AMC is running all 13 episodes on Dec 31st. Part 2 of season 2 begins in Feb.

Season 1 is 6 episodes; season 2 is on fall break, and will be 13 episodes total. I watched Season 1 and the available 7 episodes of Season 2 in less than 2 days; I have just restarted watching the series again. It is that good. While the basic outline of the show reminds me of Lost, The Walking Dead is very different.

The Walking Dead. The Walking Dead Wiki.

Wikipedia on The Walking Dead



While the show has lots and lots of Zombies, the story really is about the survivors and not the Zombies. The writing and character development in the series is amazing. The camera work is incredible.

This is not the type of show I would usually watch. I have been reading The Zombie Autopsies: : Secret Notebooks from the Apocalypse, which isn't usually something I would read. I picked it up after listening to an NPR interview with the author; the book was written by a psychiatrist at Columbia, and is about researchers trying to find a cure for the disease (Ataxic Neurodegenerative Satiety Disorder) that is causing the 2012 Zombie Apocalypse. The book is all about neuroscience, and I planning to incorporate the info into my neuroscience lectures. I might just keep those students awake!

The show raises some interesting questions. What does it mean to be human when life and death are redefined and a third existence is created? How far will people go to survive; what will we sacrifice? How much are we willing to help others when out own needs and the needs of our family are extreme? How do we create new social norms when humanity is truly dying? Why do some continue fighting for life knowing that doing so could lead to a horrible death while others give up their life for the certainty of a less painful and "human" death? Just how far will a group take the ideas of "survival of the fittest" when do the needs of the group outweigh the needs of one member of the group?

For anyone thinking about watching the show: it is pretty gory. It doesn't feel gratuitously gory, but it isn't for squeamish folks or for kids. Some late-preteens/early teens might like the show and be able to handle the show, but I recommend that parents watch a few episodes of the show to decide if it is appropriate for their child.

Season 1 Official Trailer




Season 1 Longer Trailer:

Walking dead? I've only been up a little over two hours now. You know what time I wake. They have a picture of me under the definition of "walking dead."

Whoa - that looks pretty intense. I'm going to add it to my Netflix queue.

I love it too! I have the first season on DVD but haven't watched the whole thing yet. sprout is freaked out by it so I have to find some time during the day, which is best, anyway!

I'll be back, LM K.

I still have to catch up. I have the episodes of season 2 recorded but i just havent gotten around to watching them. I watched the first 2 episodes then got busy with other things. All in all good series loved the graphic novels.

Isn't there enough of the walking dead in the tragicomedy of folks like Orly, Mario, Berg, Bowling Ball, etc., etc.?

I had not followed the show, but took your advice and watched the pilot and episodes 2 and 3 via Netflix streaming today. I'm a huge fan of zombie films, but I'm not sure this series is going to hold my interest. The "walkers" (zombies) are merely a backdrop to the main drama themes involving the living.

I dislike that they do not present certain elements of the show as realistic, starting with deputy Rick waking from his coma after not being tended to at least for several weeks (the wilted and dried flowers). The scene where deputy Shane delivers those flowers suggests Rick had been in a coma for quite a long time, yet, after a couple minutes out of bed, he has no problem getting around. I guess the writers have never heard of muscle atrophy.

I'll watch the rest of season one and see how it goes. I see IMDB members have very highly rated it so perhaps I need to give it a chance?

It's definitely worth a watch, and one must nearly always suspend disbelief at the usually absurd scenarios that lead to a zombie apocalypse and somehow have nobody but people who have never seen a zombie film in them as survivors. The first half of the second season, which just finished, will annoy you even more if the current level of living human drama is already annoying you. However, the mid-season finale was phenomenal.

Interestingly, it's the characters who start out least sympathetic in the beginning who end up the fan favorites by this point in the series, and the initially sympathetic characters end up being annoying jerks at least some of the time. One common fan criticism is too much drama, too few zombies. In the second season, be prepared to hit fast forward a few times if you utterly cannot stand emo bullshit and stilted dialogue. There are also a number of irritating story arcs.

I can't really spoil since even some viewers of the show here haven't yet seen the truly great mid-season finale (they split the season into two parts and the rest starts airing in February). All I'll say is hooray Daryl Dixon.

Other gripes with the show I have are the abysmal treatment of the female characters who really have promise, the use of minority characters like T-Dog and Glenn as a prop and zombie-bait, respectively, and downright ridiculous dialogue.

This criticism aside, though, I never even watch a show long enough to have any criticism of it unless it's one of the shows I actually follow. Currently, I don't have any such show until it come back in February, and the only other currently ongoing show I watch is Breaking Bad. I am a complete zombie freak, though, so I am probably biased and AMC has a sucker in me.

The first half-season is, IMO, really good. The second season stumbles and fumbles, but ultimately comes through in the last couple episodes. I thought it was a particularly bad idea to start the series with a 90 minute episode when they only had 60 minutes of material. I think I'll stop now, because I don't want my nitpicking to turn anyone off what is at least so far a pretty solid show.

Should we open the thread to complete conversation? Or should we wait a week or 2? We could wait for AMC to run the entire show on Dec 31st and then open to uninhibited discussion. Thoughts?

One thing about season 2; AMC cut the shows budget significantly for season 2, which was moronic because it is the channels highest rated show right now. I didn't notice the budget cut in the show. Even with the cuts, the Zombies look scarier in Season 2.

One of the writers was asked about the increase in human story arcs in season 2. His response was that you can't have a zombie show that is simply all zombies. You can't sustain a series with running and zombies. And he is right. Based on what I have read so far, the next 1/2 of season 2 is supposed to have some real shockers. The mid-season finale shocker was amazing. While the build up to the mid-season finale was slowish at times, there was, IMO a reason for that.

For those who have seen all the episodes; imagine that final scene if we didn't know the characters as well. The scene would have still been shocking. But it wouldn't have been nearly as shocking had we not gotten to know the characters better. I will discuss this more once we are no longer blocking spoilers.

All hell is about to break loose in the next episode. This is why to date, season 2 has had fewer Zombies. We needed to get to know the characters as people so that we would care about them more. Like em/hate em, but now we know each character on a deeper level, and we will be much, much more invested when we see another massive Zombie attack. There are 2 characters (I won't say which ones ... yet) that I would have very mixed feelings about if I watched them being attacked by a Zombie. Usually shows don't develop characters that completely. The only other shows I can think of that have succeeded at that are Mad Men, Breaking Bad and Lost (kinda).

I think that season 2 is about to go nuclear. (Not enough info in this next part to make it a spoiler.) I'm dying to know what Jenner whispered to Rick! I just re-watched that episode last night (season 1, episode 6), and watched Rick's face as he listened to what Jenner was whispering. That scene is hectic, so it is easy to miss everything that Andrew Lincoln (Rick) does with his face in that one moment. Then watch his face when he is in the RV afterward.

This is going to get very, very good.

One more thing; I read that this show uses more cameras at one time than any other show. Some cameras are dug into the ground so that specific shots can be taken that usually couldn't be, at least on a tv show. I think the use of cameras is one of many things that makes this show so good.

I completed the first short season and it ended better than expected. I'm not an Amazon fan, so I'll not buy the first four episodes of season 2 from them. My cable provider has the most recent episodes available for free on-demand. I'll watch and hopefully be able to fill in the gaps.

I watched maybe 3 episodes of the first season, out of sequence, and liked what I saw, but it just isn't on when I watch the TV.

Did I read that they're gonna show the whole shebang on 12/31? If so, I'd record it for later viewing.

Yep; all 13 episodes are showing on 12/31 on AMC. The marathon begins at 11 am, Eastern and Pacific.

Yeah, but there were like three zombies in the whole damn season. I've seen zombie walks with more zombies.



Maybe you can't have nothing but zombies, but without zombies at all, you're basically just watching zombiesomething. Needs moar noms.

Note: the reason Gus Fring's last scene in the finale of Breaking Bad looked so sick was that the special effects crew of TWD did it.

In an extras clip or article, one of the writers or directors said that this is a world in which there had never been Zombies before, so no one knew about Zombies before the apocalypses.

I think those who, like me, haven't read the graphic novels are at a tiny disadvantage. Or not. That might not have been something that was mentioned in the novels.



Episode 1 was chocked full of zombies (with attacks). Episode 2 (watched last night) had 2 or 3 100s (with major attacks). First 2 episodes of season 2 has had 3-5 zombie attacks, depending on how ya count 'em. I don't recall episode 3 having a walker, but zombies and attacks return. ETA: One of your fav (and mine) characters has a nasty run in with several zombies.

Glenn has a very interesting line in episode 6 or 7 that explains why the writers briefly decreased the number of zombies.

Loh, I answer your post in more detail in that thread.

I opened a "The Walking Dead: With Spoilers ... Newbies are warned!" thread. That way those of us who have watched the full series can discuss the series openly as we wait for others to catch up. If Newbies read that thread, then it's their own decision to read spoilers!

How old is sprout, Kate? (I love that nickname!)

Almost 13. He has a vivid imagination and it can take him to pretty frightening places with very little encouragement. It took him a few days to recover after his attempt at watching it.

Is he still doing his graphic novels? Boy's talented; it was fun watching the way his mind works at FEMA Camp 17. I think Stern and Tess were about to fight over who gets to be his agent. Give him a "OHAI!" from meh.

Why yes, yes he has made about 4 more! One is really short and the other three are multi-part. His language arts teacher lets him draw instead of write for some projects. Thanks for asking

We're looking around for summer programs, but really, he just wants to have fun before middle school chews him up and spits him out.

13; perfect freak out age!!

Reminder: The Walking Dead marathon begins today at 11 am E/P.

Did anyone watch on Sun night?

I did!

Thoughts? Fav scenes? Scenes you thought were stoopid?

I have been reading the Walking Dead graphic novels. Has anyone here read them? If so, PM me. I haz questions!

I converted someone into a fan this weekend. She asked we were talking about Game of Thrones coming back soon and I mentioned to her that Walking Dead was back on sunday and she had no idea what I was talking about. I'm like watch AMC on sunday. She just so happened to be flipping through channels and caught the marathon and said she's addicted now

Happens to me too. After I watched Bram Stoker's "Dracula", I slept with the lights on for a week! Even after watching an episode of Finding Bigfoot last night I was a little freaked out going upstairs.

I watched this Sunday and I'm generally pleased with the story arc so far, but it needs to wrap up and move off of the farm. I thought they dealt well with Sophia's demise, but it's gotten just a wee bit melodramatic. I expect that the bar shoot-out will have repercussions but the whole unexplained sick/unresponsive daughter schtick is too soap opera. Character driven is good, but needs moar zhombeeeeez! (Ooo...maybe she got bit where nobody can see!)

As to being freaked out by movies? The most freaked out I've ever been by a movie was The Blair Witch Project, and I was, like, 40. I watched on video, alone, late at night.

Big. Freaking. Mistake.

I didn't sleep that night at all and I didn't sleep well for days. That's why I avoid these "recovered video" genre films to this day. (Except for Cloverfield...that was fun.) I will not be looking at any of the Paranormal Activity films.

Blair Witch scared me to death. I didn't sleep well either.

I'm not a scary movie girl. The idea of the supernatural scares me. I don't believe in it but the idea of it scares me. So of course, what did I do on Halloween? I watched Paranormal Activity and Paranormal Activity 2 all alone, late at night. Thank doG for the Walking Dead. It made me forget about demons that crawl into your bed and yank you out. (I was checking behind the bathtub curtain for weeks to make sure that there wasn't a demon in there. Trying to get into bed was awful ... what if a demon grabbed me! I need a husband to take care of scary stuff.) The Walking Dead was my demon cure; I began to worry about what I would take with me during a Zombie apocalypse should one occur.