The Walking Dead Season 3 (contains spoilers)

By the way, just in case any of you weren't aware: There are two "series" of webisodes for The Walking Dead. They don't feature the regular cast, but they're still worth watching :)
 
CaptainRAVE said:
Now it has aired I don't see why you can't discuss it without spoiler tags. Considering the thread title is 'The Walking Dead Season 3 (contains spoilers)', I don't think anyone can be too shocked if it is spoiled for them :p

I personally loved the episode. That one episode was better than most of season 2 combined tbh.
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Hehe, good point, I just saw loads of spoiler tags the other day so I wasn't sure what the etiquette was.

I thought it was an alright premier, but there were loads of problems:

1. It took them about 6 months to find the prison which was right nearby at the end of season 2? Surely there would be road signs all over the place saying "State Penitentiary 1 mile" or something similar? And I'm sure it was different at the end of the other season, with walls, and now there was a fence, but maybe it's a different side.

2. They wasted loads of ammo and made a hell of a noise shooting the prisoner zombies when they could have killed them through the fence or even up close as they did inside the prison. Also, every shot, even from an AK was a headshot (except the one misshot from Carol for comedic effect).

3. All the noise should have attracted all the zombies from the surrounding woods, but at night there are none at the fence making a noise and trying to get in. Rick even walks around the fence and it shows 4 just chilling there not trying to attack him. Obviously this was all so the group could have their little moment with the song round the fire.

4. Hershel getting bitten was absolute garbage. In a world where the dead come back as zombies, they don't automatically decapitate every corpse they come across? Hershel just steps directly over a body just so he can get bitten, it was just terrible writing. It even showed Rick earlier poking a body with his machete to check, but then they changed the rules later to them just walking past/over nearby bodies. I don't know why they even took him with since he was their doctor and they needed him for Lorrie.

5. When they were going through the prison they could have just thrown something down each hallway to see if any zombies would be attracted to the noise, rather than walk around blind corners into a horde of them.

6. When Michonne cut the zombie's head off it still made a noise without any lungs or throat.

It also seems like they just added in the 6 months passing thing so that Lorrie would be near birth, since Rick is still angry with her. And they appear to have abandoned any sense of realism and turned the episode into a standard Hollywood zombie movie.
 
Yeah, getting bitten annoys me. They're too used to it now to be letting silly things like that happen. I could understand being bitten if you got outnumbered, but one just sitting on the floor is a bit silly. They could have had him go into a room and then 3 zombies go in afterhim or something and one bites his arm.

Never-mind, it's still entertaining to watch at the moment, I just hope it doesn't become EastEnders in the prison.
 
desires said:
Yeah, getting bitten annoys me. They're too used to it now to be letting silly things like that happen. I could understand being bitten if you got outnumbered, but one just sitting on the floor is a bit silly. They could have had him go into a room and then 3 zombies go in afterhim or something and one bites his arm.

Never-mind, it's still entertaining to watch at the moment, I just hope it doesn't become EastEnders in the prison.
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Yeah I think everyone is worried it will end up being another soap opera like it did on the farm. It just irks me about this series that they have all the resources to make a good action/horror series, and they are squandering it not due to an outside influence like a budget constraint, but just through terrible writing. Like you say, if they wanted Hershel to get bitten, why not just make him get bitten as they are trying to close the door to the zombie horde, like he has to push one of them away to get the door close and then one of them bites his arms as he does it. Instead they went for a cheap scare cliche of a zombie suddenly waking up as he steps over it.
 
FutileBreadMachine said:
if they wanted Hershel to get bitten, why not just make him get bitten as they are trying to close the door to the zombie horde, like he has to push one of them away to get the door close and then one of them bites his arms as he does it. Instead they went for a cheap scare cliche of a zombie suddenly waking up as he steps over it.
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I'm sorry, but that's just rubbish.

Getting bitten "making a heroic sacrifice", such as shutting the door to stop the hoarde getting through and eating his friends, is as much of a cliche as the old "disarm the bomb with 0:01 seconds remaining" plot device. It's drama for the sake of generating drama.

In the real world things happen randomly. Life is cruel, and death or injury is often random and meaningless. This is what the show is trying to represent: The futility of trying to survive in an environment that is constantly set against them. After two full series I think you might have woken up to that reality...
 
Duff-Man said:
I'm sorry, but that's just rubbish.

Getting bitten "making a heroic sacrifice", such as shutting the door to stop the hoarde getting through and eating his friends, is as much of a cliche as the old "disarm the bomb with 0:01 seconds remaining" plot device. It's drama for the sake of generating drama.

In the real world things happen randomly. Life is cruel, and death or injury is often random and meaningless. This is what the show is trying to represent: The futility of trying to survive in an environment that is constantly set against them. After two full series I think you might have woken up to that reality...
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Well I've already read the comics (I have compendium 1 on the shelf behind me), so I don't need the show to explain the themes Kirkman was exploring to me. Hershel being bitten at all was drama for the sake of drama. I would have just preferred a more plausible scenario for him to be bitten - him stepping over a corpse in a world where corpses try to eat them is not random, it is completely unbelievable behaviour. It would have been preferrable to force him into a situation where being bitten was inevitable, just as them all becoming zombies after death is inevitable. Also, him being bitten on the leg was reflecting a certain event in the comic, so it wasn't a completely original scenario by these writers.

Anyway, I don't see how my version was cliched, he would have just been in the room with them and would have had to push a zombie out the way and been bitten as his arm was outstretched (thus even providing some "random" bad luck).
 
FutileBreadMachine said:
Anyway, I don't see how my version was cliched, he would have just been in the room with them and would have had to push a zombie out the way and been bitten as his arm was outstretched (thus even providing some "random" bad luck).
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Well the fact is, life is not so logical, cut and dried, or black and white.

Most accidents in everyday life occur due to lack of concentration, or sheer bad luck, rather than some emergent threat that leaves no other choice. When you've been living with "the walking dead" for months and months, you inevitably become complacent. No-one can be at 100% concentration 100% of the time - it isn't realistic. This event was simply representing that fact - as is much of the rest of the show. It demonstrates how death is just one lapse of concentration away, for any character, at any time.

It could, of course, have been formulated to give Hershel a traditional cliche'd "hero's end" or whatever. But this would not have been in sync with the ethos of the show - it would have been more in line with a show like 24 where every character is given a pre-determined arc to advance the overall storyline. In The Walking Dead, the "storyline" is one of dark, gritty survival against the elements. In such a setting, accidents happen - especially when you're preoccupied with other threats.
 
Duff-Man said:
Well the fact is, life is not so logical, cut and dried, or black and white.

Most accidents in everyday life occur due to lack of concentration, or sheer bad luck, rather than some emergent threat that leaves no other choice. When you've been living with "the walking dead" for months and months, you inevitably become complacent. No-one can be at 100% concentration 100% of the time - it isn't realistic. This event was simply representing that fact - as is much of the rest of the show. It demonstrates how death is just one lapse of concentration away, for any character, at any time.

It could, of course, have been formulated to give Hershel a traditional cliche'd "hero's end" or whatever. But this would not have been in sync with the ethos of the show - it would have been more in line with a show like 24 where every character is given a pre-determined arc to advance the overall storyline. In The Walking Dead, the "storyline" is one of dark, gritty survival against the elements. In such a setting, accidents happen - especially when you're preoccupied with other threats.
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Yup, I know what you mean. What you're describing is more like The Wire, where at any point, practically any character could be killed, and there is not necessarily some grand character arc for them, it's just life.

But with TWD I am sensitive to the writer's hand being on display, since we have silliness like Dale on the camper with a scope not seeing a herd on the highway, and the silent and odourless clawed zombie which kills him.
 
FutileBreadMachine said:
Yup, I know what you mean. What you're describing is more like The Wire, where at any point, practically any character could be killed, and there is not necessarily some grand character arc for them, it's just life.

But with TWD I am sensitive to the writer's hand being on display, since we have silliness like Dale on the camper with a scope not seeing a herd on the highway, and the silent and odourless clawed zombie which kills him.
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... I'll admit, there have been occasions where I've had to suspend my disbelief with TWD (the two Dale-related occasions you mention being among the most prominent!), and there is room for improvement in the show there.

But still, in my opinion, the Hershel bite fit well with the style of the show (which IMO is a lot more "The Wire" than "24" or "Lost"). I'm looking forward to the rest of the series - the showdown with Woodbury should be a thing of splendor!
 
Duff-Man said:
... I'll admit, there have been occasions where I've had to suspend my disbelief with TWD (the two Dale-related occasions you mention being among the most prominent!), and there is room for improvement in the show there.

But still, in my opinion, the Hershel bite fit well with the style of the show (which IMO is a lot more "The Wire" than "24" or "Lost"). I'm looking forward to the rest of the series - the showdown with Woodbury should be a thing of splendor!
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24 used to really get my back up sometimes and had me shouting at the TV at some of the contrived stuff they pulled :D

I am still looking forward to the rest of TWD too for sure, and the next episode should be really interesting.
 
It was a good episode, but Hershel was cheaply done. more the fact it seemed to wait till Hershel walked over it (as others said this was stupid anyway) and then pounced, wouldn't it have tried to get them when they first went by?
 
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