Fear the Walking Dead is a show worth watching and The Walking Dead core audience should really give it a chance.
We, meaning the modern viewing audience, are so accustomed to having things right now. Immediate gratification is the name of the game, but what ever happened to anticipation? The build-up, the waiting to for something good or unexpected to happen in good solid story line the makes us all go, “DAMN!”
Fear the Walking Dead has a slower pace than its cousin, but I think it is a pretty solid show. It’s solid in the sense that we have only seen the aftermath of the what this virus, this epidemic has done to the human population, but we don’t see the root of how Rick, Daryl, Carol, Glenn, Maggie, Carl, or the rest of the group got to that point of running on raw instinct and doing whatever they need to do to survive. We only have part of the story with The Walking Dead series and Fear the Walking is there to fill in the blanks.
Where The Walking Dead is pure energy and a high level of people trying to live to see another day, Fear the Walking Dead shows the humanity that was lost in the wake of the spread of this horrible virus. People still believed in the government and its ability to protect us, but no one is immune from this fate. And it very interesting to see this take place and we see how the hordes of scavenger clans came to be. We see how a place like Terminus could, and did, happen. We see what survival or the need to survive will do to some human beings.
AMC may be worried a bit about how the ratings are going, but they shouldn’t be. I would hope that the powers that be at AMC will let this show play out for while. I believe that if they cancel it now it would be a detriment to their network. So many great shows have been cancelled before they have really had an opportunity to catch on, before they had chance to come into their own. And I think Fear is one of those shows.
A prime example of a show that was not given the opportunity to grow into its own is Firefly. Fox Network canceled the show before it had a chance to be seen by a wider audience – sometimes it takes some a little more time to appreciate greatness – and when they are discovered people wonder why their were not more episodes. At comic/fantasy convention Nathan Fillion, Summer Glau, Alan Tudyk, Gina Torres, and the rest of the Firefly casts are huge draws. People stand in line for hours just to meet the actors from the show and to cosplay as their favorite character.
Damian Lewis, possibly the next James Bond, and Sarah Shahi starred in the 2007 NBC drama, Life, about a cop that was falsely accused, convicted, and sentence to murder. Twelve years later he was exonerated through DNA testing and rewarded a VERY large undisclosed sum and is given his job back as a LA police officer. It was smart quirky show and it wasn’t give the time to flourish. The same can also be said about ABCs cop drama Life on Mars (2009). We must be very careful not to let Fear go the same way of those series.
Last night on Talking Dead Chris Hardwick made a good point. He said, “The civilization has to crumble. You have to get to know the characters first and then it can all, then it can all happen.” I actually agree with him. We are creating a culture that puts more importance on the “now” than quality entertainment and really understanding and getting to know a show and the characters. We are a “show me, show me, show me” kind of viewing audience. QUALITY matters!
For me The Walking Dead became a better show when we had the opportunity to learn a little more about the individuals in our core group BEFORE the “walker” apocalypse happened. In Fear we see the characters’ – Travis, Maddie, Liza, Daniel – and their humanity first, and then we will see it slowly fall away to the baser instinct to live.
So folks, just because Fear the Walking Dead is taking a little time to get to gore doesn’t mean it’s not coming. Humanity is not lost overnight, it takes time and experiences had by the living to get it to that place.
