With the conclusion of Season eight of the main show, I've decided to fill the zombie shaped whole in my life by watching the spin off show "Fear The Walking Dead".
The pilot revolves around one family, the always brilliant Kim Dickins plays Madison Clark whose two children Nick and Alycia are very different. Alycia is preparing to escape her life by heading to Berkley and Nick too is escaping his life, though via the much more dangerous route of taking heroin. It's Nick who proves our introduction to the world, stumbling across a zombie attack and ending up hospitalised and nearly sectioned as he attempts to come to terms with what he's seen. The families search for him, whilst the realisation dawns that all is not right in the world, is the thrust of this first episode.
So the pilot is, for my money, a little too slow moving. There's isn't really enough story to justify that run time and there's a balance required in establishing characters before putting them at risk to make you care, and I'm not sure it really gets it right. It has a reveal at the end of the opening scene that we are back at a time when the apocalypse is starting out, that I assume was quite the reveal at the time it first aired, but unfortunately it was information I already had prior to seeing the show.
None of the characters seem initially to be particularly annoying at this early stage and even the well tread dynamic of children being resentful of a step parent doesn't seem to be as worn out as usual. I don't have much of an idea of where the series is going from here, but I'm certainly interested in watching the next one.
The pilot revolves around one family, the always brilliant Kim Dickins plays Madison Clark whose two children Nick and Alycia are very different. Alycia is preparing to escape her life by heading to Berkley and Nick too is escaping his life, though via the much more dangerous route of taking heroin. It's Nick who proves our introduction to the world, stumbling across a zombie attack and ending up hospitalised and nearly sectioned as he attempts to come to terms with what he's seen. The families search for him, whilst the realisation dawns that all is not right in the world, is the thrust of this first episode.
So the pilot is, for my money, a little too slow moving. There's isn't really enough story to justify that run time and there's a balance required in establishing characters before putting them at risk to make you care, and I'm not sure it really gets it right. It has a reveal at the end of the opening scene that we are back at a time when the apocalypse is starting out, that I assume was quite the reveal at the time it first aired, but unfortunately it was information I already had prior to seeing the show.
None of the characters seem initially to be particularly annoying at this early stage and even the well tread dynamic of children being resentful of a step parent doesn't seem to be as worn out as usual. I don't have much of an idea of where the series is going from here, but I'm certainly interested in watching the next one.