If you’re going to watch a lot of television shows, it’s
worth figuring out what sort of themes you like the most. For some reason, I’ve never been able to
interest myself in shows about solving murders.
I’m (probably) never going to murder anyone, so it all seems largely
irrelevant. However, any show with a
hint of zombie apocalypse goes straight on my watchlist. If I follow my own logic, then this should
mean that I fully expect to live through humanity being killed off by the
undead. But then, I don’t think I do see
this in my future. Yet, it’s still feels
more relevant to my life. And this is
most likely because half my days are spent in a zombie-like routine, catching
the same buses, standing in the same spots on Tube platforms, thumbing through
the same apps and repeatedly writing the same office emails. It’s not quite apocalyptic, but its tedium is
probably as painful as being eaten alive by cadavers.
Anyway, we’ve got distracted. The point is, I love anything about
zombies. Ever since I was dragged to see
28 Days Later (actually about
an infection), I’ve never found anything as compelling as working out what I
would do in the same situation. That
said, I still don’t have a plan. And so,
with the eighth series of The
Walking Dead hitting UK screens, it’s time to turn attentions to the spin
off, mostly because I’ve just finished the second series.
With the democratisation of TV content, allowing viewers to
pick their own schedules, a model that’s done so well for Netflix and Amazon,
it was an absolute mugging off that BT did the
worst thing ever with Fear The
Walking Dead on its UK launch by holding it hostage on its paid-for
channels in order to force people to sign up.
Instead, people simply resorted to pirating it, so go fudge yourselves,
BT. I have been a good boy and simply
hung on for the episodes to come under Amazon Prime.
The show’s lack of ubiquity is a real shame, as its quality
really is up there with The Walking Dead.
Sure, the gore maws your eyes sore, but having the fall of civilisation as
a backdrop really makes a good character arc seem all the more compelling. The action centres on LA in the early days of
the outbreak, complementing The Walking Dead’s setting in the well-established
future of the same apocalypse. The
tension that dominates the first series as the characters try and work out what’s
going on while we’re fully clued up on their fates makes for epic viewing.
But, it’s actually very hard to like any of the
characters. The show still has you
rooting for them to survive, but they mostly are a real bunch of bastards. This continues into the second series and ties
in with the theory that, while monsters may walk the earth, humans will always
be the biggest bad guys.
Beyond describing the premise as following a band of
survivors attempting to live out the end of days, there’s not much else you
need to know. Comparisons to The Walking
Dead might be all we have. While
everyone in that show looks sweaty as balls in the Georgia humidity, Fear The
Walking Dead plays out in the dry heat of California and beyond. As someone who is almost always too hot and
can barely keep any clothes on, my biggest concern is how someone can bear to
wear jeans in a desert, not the fact that they are being chased by
brain-devouring zombies.
The languages geek within me loves the fact that a good
portion of the show switches between Spanish and English, and you’re definitely
in for a treat if you like boats. The
Walking Dead’s zombie lore is well observed, though Fear The Walking Dead does
rely a great deal on the fact that smearing yourself with dead people’s bodily
mush disguises to zombies that you are still alive. It’s a bit too easy.
Zombie-based dramas trump a lot of other themes, simply
because any and all of the characters can die at any minute. It might sound macabre to enjoy this, but what
else can consistently provide such strong human drama? In murder mysteries, the victim is already dead,
lying there cold and inert in a chilly morgue.
In Fear The Walking Dead, the victims of death stalk the earth having a
lot more fun (and doing that sort of breathy growling they enjoy so much). Just don’t watch it straight before bed as
you will be too tense to sleep, unless you have finally numbed all your
emotions by watching too much of this sort of thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment