Tag Archives: The Walking Dead

Friday’s Top Five

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Here’s the countdown:

5. Say Hello to the Aliens!

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Thanks to a fantastical machine that would leave its namesake believing in witchcraft, NASA’s Kepler space telescope has pinpointed more than 1,200 new planets in the universe. It’s been estimated there are BILLIONS of planets (I think it was Carl Sagan who said that). So far we’ve only found a few of these billions (and by found, I mean hypothesized based on such magic as the wobbling of light from distant stars). Now we’ve verified a whole lot more. Can’t wait for the day when we actually visit these planets. Well considering I won’t live that long (and neither will you) I’ll just have to settle for exploring via sci-fi. (The dude in the photo is Johannes Kepler, a 17th century German astronomer. NASA stole his name for their pet project. Not sure why.).

4. Throat-biting Rick Grimes

This one’s a throwback. It’s from a few years ago, but it’s a classic. The Walking Dead is a seductive show. It’s a soap opera disguised as a horror show, a soap opera about power, not love. And no one pulls off the melodrama quite like Rick Grimes. The Georgia cop turned reluctant survivalist is a strange hero. On one hand, he’s fearless and crafty, willing to do whatever it takes to keep his makeshift family alive. On the other hand, he’s a melancholy head case (he was getting phone calls from his dead wife!) who is prone to drama. And this scene, where Rick bites the neck out of a man (human, not zombie) is either the pinnacle or the low point of Rickness. But in all fairness, his son was about to get raped. I’m on team Rick here, and that’s why throat-biting Rick Grimes is my spirit animal. No one does tortured crazy like Rick.

3. Music Not Meant for the Masses

I recently stumbled upon John Grant after spending some time descending into a YouTube rabbit hole (something about Prince and Sinead O’Connor…). Grant was being interviewed in Icelandic, then he launching into song with Sinead as his backup singer(!). It turns out this lumberjack-looking American is actually the love child of Karen Carpenter raised by the caretaker of a sanatarium. Not really, but that’s what his voice sounds like. He’s an odd duck unafraid to put his oddities on full display. So as obsessive I get, I’ve been listening to him over and over (along with Gojira, Grimes, Tame Impala, and FKA Twigs – don’t ask). Queen of Denmark is one of my favorites. And apparently Sinead too, since she covered it.

2. May

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It’s not my favorite month of the year – that would be my birthday month of February. May is a close second, this year especially. Our winter sucked. We got barely any snow, and I only went snowboarding five times. The conditions were…well, sucky. A bad day of snowboarding is still better than any other day, but I expected better. If the winter was too warm, then spring has been too cold — damp, London rainy chill. . That’s all changing now that May is here. It’s turning beautiful : blue skies, sunshine, warmth on the skin. May would have won the week, but it can’t top snow…

1. Jon Snow Has Had Enough of Your Shit, Night’s Watch

Oh, Game of Thrones. Like The Walking Dead, you’re another soap opera disguised as a beautifully written and acted drama with cinematic production values. After you killed off the hero, and then the hero’s wife and son at THE WORST WEDDING EVER, I realized you would never give me the justice I craved. Sure, you killed off the bad seed inbred golden boy Joffrey, but his vile mother Cersei is still alive. Last you killed Jon Snow, he of the resting bitch face and high moral character. Of course he would die, he’s a Stark after all. But in one of the worst kept secrets in GoT fandom, Jon Snow was resurrected by Melisandre (who should never take off that necklace). Finally we had some justice. That alone would be enough to earn the number one spot, but then we got to see Jon preside over the hanging of his murderers, including that surly teenager Ollie. I cheered when the brat’s eyes bulged and his face turned purple. the scene ended with Jon Snow taking off his ugly feather coat off and quitting the Night’s Watch. If you’re going to quit, do it Jon Snow style.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tracking the zombie outbreak

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Who doesn’t love a good zombie story? I know, not everyone does but I like to pretend they do. From George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead to the AMC channel’s The Walking Dead, zombies have been a staple of the horror genre for half a century, with no sign of them being killed off anytime soon.

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But who knew that zombies could be a topic worthy of honest-to-goodness scientific inquiry? I sure didn’t. I was wrong.

A team of researchers from Cornell University used a combination of US Census data and statistical probabilities regarding disease outbreaks, coupled that with some zombie lore, and created an interactive map that allows you and me to watch our own little zombie outbreak as it filters across the US.

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The map, which you can find here, lets us control a few of the parameters to make it interesting:

–how easy or hard it is to kill zombies

–how fast the zombies move

–where the outbreak originates

I tried a couple of simulations, and watched as a chilling red crept across the map. for both simulations, I had the outbreak start in Miami, because all the weird stuff happens in Florida.

In simulation 1, I had slow-moving zombies that were relatively easy to kill. While the zombies zipped up the east coast of Florida, it took them a full 16 days to conquer Florida, and after a month, they were still bogged down in the deep south. The zombies2takeaway? Under these conditions humans would have a good chance of surviving — the threat could conceivably be contained.

Then I tried a quicker, nastier simulation, with faster zombies that were harder to kill. Again, I started in Miami. And the results were scarier, at least for those of us on the East Coast. By the second day Florida was completely overrun. After 4 days the south was gone. On day 5, zombies were attacking New Orleans and the Midwest. Day 6: Washington DC, Baltimore were decimated, followed quickly by Philadelphia, and as the day ended, New York City fell victim, with Chicago, Houston and Detroit next to fall.

The good news? The outbreak had a hard time spreading through the rural areas of the Western United States. So if you want to survive the zombie apocalypse, go west.

Genre TV: a golden age or too much of a good thing?

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It is a sad fact that there are too many great books in the world, of all genres, that I will never have time to read. I’m sure that I’m missing out on some life-changing classics, but there’s nothing I can do about that.

Star TrekWhen it comes to TV, though, there used to be a time when you could be up on all the great TV shows. For fans of all things sci-fi/supernatural/horror like myself, it wasn’t that hard, because there were so few TV shows that had a sci-fi or supernatural theme. Back in the 1950s you had The Twilight Zone and in the 1960s came The Outer Limits, Star Trek, and in England, Doctor Who. Along the way there were a smattering of other TV shows, notably the X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the ’90s, but with only a handful of networks (and the BBC in England) the options were severely limited.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

That’s all changed. Now there seems to be a new network popping up every week, along with new TV shows. When Lost premiered, it reinvigorated the genre by making it commercially and critically viable. As flawed as Lost was, the emmy-winning series showed the powers that be that genre shows could make money and win awards.

Lost

Since then, there’s been an explosion of genre shows. A few decades ago, who would have predicted that two of the most hyped television shows would include dragons and zombies? These two shows, Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead are worldwide cultural events. Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead bring more than just supernatural/fantastical/horror elements: they have high production values, are well acted, and have great writing.

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And these are just two of the latest and greatest. The past couple of decades have given us so many great genre shows, from SyFy’s Farscape and the Battlestar Galactica reboot, to BBC’s relaunched Doctor Who and BBC America’s Orphan Black. I should be happy, right?

Orphan Black Tatiana Maslany

In a way, I’m not. There are SO MANY genre shows out there I can’t keep up. And neither can the people who are writing them. The Walking Dead has given us the derivative Z Nation. The second season of SyFy’s Helix was a mess (a glorious, batshit crazy mess, but still a mess). And Netflix’s Hemlock Grove was half-baked camp. We’ve got a glut of genre shows out there, some of which should have never been made, and others that could have used a little more seasoning.

helixNot to mention that I don’t have the time to watch the vast majority. I’d love to watch The Strain, and there’s a new Salem TV show with Lucy Lawless that looks interesting. But between work, writing, play, family, how could I possibly fit all these shows into my life?

Maybe Hollywood needs to scale back a little — if not in the number of shows, then at least in the number of episodes. In the UK, it’s a common practice for TV shows to be short runs. Each season is perhaps six episodes, and the TV shows only run for a few seasons, if that. What you get is concise storytelling that does not require a lifetime commitment of the viewer. I’d fully support this idea; even the best shows suffer from episode bloat and could use some trimming (I’m looking at you, Walking Dead).

The Walking Dead: Ecstasy and agony

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I’m late to The Walking Dead. It’s not that I don’t like zombies — I do, ever since I watched Night of the Living Dead as a five year old. But there are so many shows out there, as well as an endless supply of zombie-themed shows and books. When it came to The Walking Dead, I just couldn’t be bothered.

But I decided to binge watch the show last Thanksgiving, and just before Christmas I caught up. (Part Walking Dead Castof that time was spent in bed with a fever — zombie shows make for surreal fever dreams). My verdict? The Walking Dead does several things great:

–This show manages to put a fresh spin on the beaten-to-death zombie trope. How? By focusing on the nuts and bolts of survival in a slow-moving apocalypse. Zombies are only one danger. Other humans are nearly as bad (hell, they’re sometimes worse).

–Rick Grimes (as played by Andrew Lincoln) is a hero who is both resolute and plagued by doubt. He is human and relatable. This is a tricky mix that the writers, and Lincoln, pull off.

–With its ensemble, revolving cast, its characterizations can be uneven. Some have remained cardboard over several seasons (I’m looking at you, Glenn and Maggie). but then we get amazing characters like Michonne. Michonne petsShe will be remembered as one of the iconic horror characters decades from now. And then there’s Daryl, who has been consistently bad-ass, and consistently compelling. Finally, there’s Carol, who has morphed from a mousy abused woman to a woman with a backbone of steel. Carol has seen the worst of life and she has learned what it takes to survive in this horrific world.

But… The Walking Dead, like Lost, is one of those maddening TV shows that is blessed with brilliance and plagued by arrogance. This show is great, and the writers know it, which trips them up.

Take the episode “The Grove” from season 4. Carol and Tyreese are holed up in an idyllic country cottage with two young sisters. As often happens on this show, things go south. Way south. This episode was sharp and smart and beautiful. It was gut-wrenching and caught me off-guard. It was not a fast-paced episode — The Walking Dead often walks very slowly. But it was one of the most jarring hours of television I’ve seen.

And then The Walking Dead serves up an episode like “Them,” the latest in current season 5. In “Them,” the gang is reeling from the deaths of two beloved members. They’re wandering, starving, thirsty, and trailed by ambling zombies. And they have angst. And doubt. Basically nothing much of note happens for most of this episode, except for our heroes acting out in small, supposedly symbolic ways. Plus, we get a perverse motivational speech from Rick that is about three seasons too late in coming.The writers were aiming for deep symbolism and small epiphanies. They missed. Instead we got an hour of pouting and navel gazing.

Still, the worst episode of The Walking Dead is better than 99% of other TV shows. Here’s hoping the writers don’t repeat mistakes like this. Please — give us more ecstasy and spare us the agony.

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Ascension — a fatal bait-and-switch

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I have to give the SyFy network some credit. After taking a strange turn away from all things sci-fi several years ago, they’re making an effort to cultivate new sci-fi programming. Helix, for example, is a solid, if not great, show.

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I was excited to see the promos for SyFy’s new miniseries (and possible series) Ascension. Not just because it stars Battlestar Galactica alum Tricia Helfer, though that’s a plus. Mainly I was ASCENSION-HELFERintrigued by its plot. This is what we were told Ascension would be about:

A spaceship is launched in 1963 to colonize the far reaches of space. Halfway through their 100-year journey, they’ve been isolated from Earth, yet continue on with their mission.

Wow. So many thematic possibilities. The obvious question, what would a society be like that never saw advances such as civil rights and feminism? And how would this society have evolved over a full generation with nothing to rely on but their faith in their mission? Space operas tend to focus on the larger mission, that is, surviving in space and getting to the planet. Few genre shows get into the nitty gritty of day-to-day survival. In my opinion, that’s one reason why The Walking Dead is such a successful show. When it comes to zombies, it is wholly conventional — nothing new to see there. But what it does different than every other zombie show we’ve seen is focus on the mechanics of survival. Ascension, based on its premise, seemed like it could be the sci-fi equivalent.

Ascension

Unfortunately it did none of this. Instead, what we got with Ascension was one of the biggest bait-and-switches I’ve seen on TV.

(SPOILERS BELOW…)

At the very end of the first night of Ascension‘s three night run, we discovered that the spaceship was not in fact traveling in space. It had never left the ground. The whole thing was a planned, covert experiment.

What???

So, you mean to tell me, the last two hours I’ve invested in these people and their mission was wasted? And there are four hours left?

Now, I’m all for dramatic twists, but this one undermined the whole premise of Ascension. I was lured to a show about space exploration, not a show about a Truman Show style social experiment.

I watched the remaining four hours of Ascension, though my heart wasn’t in it. I didn’t care about the power struggle among those running the experiment, and I no longer cared about what was happening on the spaceship, because their mission wasn’t real anyway. And all I could focus on were the flaws: the boring angsty teen subplot, the annoying child actor who played a girl with mystical abilities.

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By the time the ending came — a convoluted, inexplicable mess of a thing — I was glad it was over, and I was also sorry that I never got to see the show that I was originally promised.