S01.E01: Brave

[paulvdb]

Quote

Iris receives an enigmatic ally from her community, while Hope questions the visitor's motives. A message alters the sisters' worldview, forcing them to decide between the safety of their home and the uncertainty of the world beyond.

This airs on AMC on Sunday, but is already available to stream on AMC+. And on Amazon Prime for international viewers. Which is something I wasn't aware of until I just went there to watch the new episode of The Boys and saw that this was also available.

[Iguessnot]

The helmet weave is pissing me off already.

[theredhead77]

I may just be desperate for new things to watch (says the woman with Prime, Hulu and Netflix) but I enjoyed it. I really want to know what caused "the sky to fall". The way it's being portrayed seems like some Left Behind nonsense but all the pilots turned to zombies instead of disappeared.

[CountryCrazy]

I really liked it and looking forward watching other episodes ! Great premiere 😎😃

[oakville]

I enjoyed watching the series premiere. The 4 teens remind me of the Harry Potter movies. I was confused by the last scene of the Campus Colony being taken over by Walkers. The CRM is a very interesting concept.

[theredhead77]

1 minute ago, oakville said:

I was confused by the last scene of the Campus Colony being taken over by Walkers.

I think sketchy military lady had the residents all killed and those "empties" were them. I feel like I should have recognized the one in the flannel.

Edited October 5, 2020 by theredhead77

[TvGeek]

I'm a little confused about that as well. It looked like there was a huge hole in the wall so I'm wondering if they had one of their helicopters shoot it or a grunt throw a grenade at it to let the zeds in. Perhaps someone/something else entirely destroyed it. Pretty sure it was them though. I thinking Military lady was behind the secret notes posing as their father to get them to leave. Why else at the end would dude say they couldn't find her (I'm assuming the smart sister) and Military lady says "good"

Edited October 5, 2020 by TvGeek
Was a grammatical mess

[BasilSeal]

6 hours ago, TvGeek said:

I'm a little confused about that as well. It looked like there was a huge hole in the wall so I'm wondering if they had one of their helicopters shoot it or a grunt throw a grenade at it to let the zeds in. Perhaps someone/something else entirely destroyed it. Pretty sure it was them though. I thinking Military lady was behind the secret notes posing as their father to get them to leave. Why else at the end would dude say they couldn't find her (I'm assuming the smart sister) and Military lady says "good"

I had to go back and watch this part again to try and work out what was happening. when the CRM lady arrives, hope sees the other helicopters carrying containers, presumably with a military force on board to take over the campus colony. In the final campus scene we see they've blasted a hole in the outer wall and let the walkers in, there are mainly walkers from outside judging by their condition, dead on the lawn but there's also a recently killed guy lying among them. One of the dead walkers has the blue marker paint on it that the generic male / female sidekick characters painted on some walkers so they could be 'tracked'.

there are a number of walking dead coincidences, (ISTR a character in fTWD tells travis they need to expect coincidences, and sure enough, there are always plenty)

The connection between hope and the corduroy suit kid was a bit, oh, FFS, i also think the shady military lady is the mother of the soldier who was the girlfriend of her out of lost in fTWD

giving hope the map was an obvious ploy to push them into going to find their father, no way would an organisation that kills anyone who sees them give info like that away on a drunken whim.

In fact is that why they attacked the campus colony? because they knew of the CRM's existence, and now their plan regarding the girls is in action, whatever this is, the campus is no longer needed? 

Edited October 5, 2020 by BasilSeal

[BasilSeal]

36 minutes ago, icemiser69 said:

Far too much dialogue, and I don't like the girl that shot the pregnant lady.  I realize the pregnant lady shot that girl's mom, but that pregnant lady was terrified.  The pregnant lady pleaded for help earlier in the episode and they wouldn't help her.  For all she knew she could have thought was going to be left behind again, if the mother and daughter managed to regroup with the father and other sister.   

This is just standard TWD 'everyone has done something awful' fare though, isn't it? everyone who has survived this far is somehow morally compromised, therefore there are no actual good guys, just the people who are with you and the people who are against you. 

in this specific case it sets up several dynamics, big sister is guilty because she wasn't there for little sister when their mum got killed and thinks it was somehow all her fault, little sister is glad she wasn't there because she got her mum shot, then she murdered a pregnant lady, then there's the future conflict between discount harry potter and little sister when DHP finds out she murdered his mum and unborn sibling, which will no doubt be a world of fun.

It's also a fairly standard TWD trope for something terrible to happen just because people are a bit shitty and selfish, and don't work together and / or there's some terrible misunderstanding that ends tragically because that's just how shit goes down in the apocalypse. although oddly, the message the show gives in response to this is not that we should all try to be nicer to each other and more cooperative, but rather that you might as well just shoot everyone new you meet in the face first as last, just to be on the safe side.

[oakville]

6 hours ago, BasilSeal said:

I had to go back and watch this part again to try and work out what was happening. when the CRM lady arrives, hope sees the other helicopters carrying containers, presumably with a military force on board to take over the campus colony. In the final campus scene we see they've blasted a hole in the outer wall and let the walkers in, there are mainly walkers from outside judging by their condition, dead on the lawn but there's also a recently killed guy lying among them. One of the dead walkers has the blue marker paint on it that the generic male / female sidekick characters painted on some walkers so they could be 'tracked'.

giving hope the map was an obvious ploy to push them into going to find their father, no way would an organisation that kills anyone who sees them give info lie that away on a drunken whim.

In fact is that why they attacked the campus colony? because they knew of the CRM's existence, and now their plan regarding the girls is in action, whatever this is, the campus is no longer needed? 

I don't understand why the CRM would attack the CC. Aren't they supposed to be allies?

 

[BasilSeal]

13 minutes ago, oakville said:

I don't understand why the CRM would attack the CC. Aren't they supposed to be allies?

 

I think supposed is the key word here.

The CRM wanted something from the Campus Colony, it's not clear what but it appears to centre on the two sisters and their dad. It appears that the CRM boss lady somehow engineers the situation where the girls go out on their own to rescue their dad, she deliberately gives away his supposed location, and there's also a question of whether the messages (was that telex?), are actually from him or sent by CRM as a misdirection.

My assumption would be that they pretend to ally themselves with the CC to achieve this end, and once they've done this, the CC has no further use. It's not really a balanced alliance if one side doesn't know where the other is even located, but this other side is able to rock up at the CC tooled up with helicopters and a load of black clad  storm troopers.

From the brief bit we saw, most but not all of the bodies on the CC lawn were decomposing walkers, so presumably most of the 9000+ CC residents are still alive and captured? Again, presumably the CRM have some greater plan in which the CC is just colterol damage, but killing 9000 people would seem a bit wasteful given that people are a resource too, so it wouldn't make sense for them to kill everyone, not to mention the logistical problem of genocide on that scale, then again, not everything in TWD makes sense. 

Edited October 5, 2020 by BasilSeal

[Mr. Sparkle]

25 minutes ago, icemiser69 said:

Was that revealed in the episode?  I don't remember.  I have a horrible memory, and I was irritated due to there being so much dialogue. I probably missed it.

I have never read the Harry Potter books and have only seen part of one movie. 

Yeah, the kid took out a picture of his mom, who was the pregnant lady in the little sister's flashbacks. He mentioned his unborn sister. A little too contrived, IMO. 

I wasn't thinking Harry Potter, but now that you mention it... 

Edited October 5, 2020 by Superclam

[BasilSeal]

31 minutes ago, Superclam said:

A little too contrived, IMO. 

It's a massive contrivance. i mean the death of the two mothers is contrived itself, i get it's the apocalypse and zombies are falling out of the sky , so ok it's a bit stressful, but why does she think another woman with a child is a threat to her? so she shoots the other woman, drops the gun and gets shot herself by a six year old, Yeah, right.

Now i can just about rationalise that, but then, out of over 9000 possible choices, hope picks the one guy who's mum she shot to go walkabout in the apocalypse with? that's stretching things a little bit far for me.

[CletusMusashi]

I like the girls, and I like the smaller more interesting boy. I don't particularly dislike the larger boy, but I don't find his character interesting yet.

So if the zombies eat him next week, I'll be fine with him getting replaced by Tobias.

[mrspidey]

So CRM is the Enclave and they just genocided the equivalent of a Vault to probably get their hands on the equivalent of a G.E.C.K?

Has Gimple been playing Fallout 2 lately? 

[paulvdb]

I never watched The Walking Dead because I didn't care much for its pilot episode, but I like some supernatural teen series and there is less to watch than usual because of Covid. So I decided to give this one a chance. I probably would have understood some things better if I was more familiar with this universe, but I liked this enough to at least watch the next episode.

[tennisgurl]

TWD and its spin-offs, this franchise is like a Hydra, cut off one show and three more shows grow in its place! I do think this has potential though, this pilot was loads better than the Fear the Walking Dead pilot, and I think that exploring a more "civilized" part of the country is a good idea, even if we all know that these CRM people are sketchy and that there will be many Dark Secrets. This whole place seems like a much bigger version of Woodbury, or at least CRM does, presumably complete with creepy zombie heads floating somewhere. I like this enough to keep watching. Hopefully future episodes will have more action and less talking and exposition dumping. 

The main girl seems likable, but I haven't really gotten a beat on the boys yet, and rebellious sister is kind of annoying. Clearly working through her dead mom/killing pregnant lady trauma, but I find her to be the resident whiny unhelpful trouble causer that this franchise always needs around or now. Also not sure what to make of the rest of the characters yet, but the acting is all pretty solid so we will see where they go. 

What a crazy coincidence, their friend and travel buddy happens to be the son of the lady who killed the sisters mom and who rebellious sister killed, although her baby apparently lived somehow. It really is a small world after all!

Funny seeing the map with all of the question marks around where the main show takes place, this is actually a cross over that I could have potential. 

Edited October 5, 2020 by tennisgurl

[rmontro]

10 hours ago, BasilSeal said:

The CRM wanted something from the Campus Colony, it's not clear what but it appears to centre on the two sisters and their dad. It appears that the CRM boss lady somehow engineers the situation where the girls go out on their own to rescue their dad, she deliberately gives away his supposed location, and there's also a question of whether the messages (was that telex?), are actually from him or sent by CRM as a misdirection.

That appears to be a distinct possibility, but what could possibly be the reason that makes sending four teenagers off into the wild so important?  I'm just afraid whatever it is, it's going to be very far fetched

I do think this first episode was much better than Fear the Walking Dead's, which I've since given up on.

[theredhead77]

4 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

What a crazy coincidence, their friend and travel buddy happens to be the son of the lady who killed the sisters mom and who rebellious sister killed, although her baby apparently lived somehow. It really is a small world after all!

I don't think the baby lived, unless I missed something. 

 

[tennisgurl]

38 minutes ago, theredhead77 said:

I don't think the baby lived, unless I missed something. 

I thought that the kid mentioned his sister gave him the fossil that he was looking for, and that she was born when their mom died, but maybe I misunderstood and it was a different sibling. 

[txhorns79]

Quote

I may just be desperate for new things to watch (says the woman with Prime, Hulu and Netflix) but I enjoyed it. I really want to know what caused "the sky to fall". The way it's being portrayed seems like some Left Behind nonsense but all the pilots turned to zombies instead of disappeared.

My guess it would be similar to that webisode miniseries they did with Fear the Walking Dead where there was an outbreak on a plane, causing the plane to crash.  It wasn't that all the planes crashed, they just happened to have a plane crash near them and being small children, they made the event into something bigger than it was.

I rolled my eyes at corduroy suit's mom being the mom killed by the girl.  They also seem to be putting a lot of faith in the idea that sketchy woman was being honest when she told them their dad was in New York.   

[One4Sorrow2TooBad]

Walking Dead goes woke, sorry this show won't make it.

[theredhead77]

1 hour ago, tennisgurl said:

I thought that the kid mentioned his sister gave him the fossil that he was looking for, and that she was born when their mom died, but maybe I misunderstood and it was a different sibling. 

I thought he was saving it to give to his sister. I guess we'll find out soon enough (unless we do the logical thing and rewatch it)

[MJ Frog]

I would like to pose a practical question at this point. As someone who knows next to nothing about this universe, why in the world are there any functioning zombies left? It's been ten years, more than enough time for them to have rotted well past any kind of dead that can walk.

[heisenberg]

3 hours ago, One4Sorrow2TooBad said:

Walking Dead goes woke, sorry this show won't make it.

Yep. Could not handle it passed 15 minutes.  I just stopped.

2 minutes ago, heisenberg said:

 

 

Edited October 6, 2020 by heisenberg

[Nashville]

1 hour ago, MJ Frog said:

I would like to pose a practical question at this point. As someone who knows next to nothing about this universe, why in the world are there any functioning zombies left? It's been ten years, more than enough time for them to have rotted well past any kind of dead that can walk.

Because there’s always a fresh supply of zombies coming in.  If you’ll recall from TWD, everybody living is already infected with the Z virus - so every time someone passes, they’re going to turn unless someone is standing by ready to headspike them as soon as they die.

[BasilSeal]

5 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

I thought that the kid mentioned his sister gave him the fossil that he was looking for, and that she was born when their mom died, but maybe I misunderstood and it was a different sibling. 

his parents had bought the fossil and it was going to be a present from his new sister when she was born. ie they'd got him something presumably to stop the six year old him being jealous of his sister or feeling left out after her birth, or something. that was my reading anyway.

[BasilSeal]

27 minutes ago, Nashville said:

Because there’s always a fresh supply of zombies coming in.  If you’ll recall from TWD, everybody living is already infected with the Z virus - so every time someone passes, they’re going to turn unless someone is standing by ready to headspike them as soon as they die.

most of the population have died in the first weeks after the initial outbreak, and although new zombies appear because everyone turns when they die, the majority of walkers in the show have been around since the start. this is why they become progressively more decomposed as the series has gone on. 

The walkers do decompose, just not as fast as normal dead bodies do. there is never an explanation for why this is the case, just as there is never an explanation as to why the walkers exist in the first place. this is probably for the best, as zombies particularly the zombies as they are depicted in TWD, are impossible. Among other things, they defy the first law of thermodynamics, energy can neither be created or destroyed. they're made of dead tissue, so how do they convert what they eat into energy? and even if they don't eat anything (or anyone), they still keep going, but what powers them? where do they derive the energy to keep moving indefinitely?

Yeah, i know, that's over thinking it, but essentially the walkers are a magical detail in an otherwise naturalistic universe, so, suspension of disbelief and all that, the walkers just are, and certain rules apply to them and these rules are what they are for, er, reasons.

Ultimately they're just a metaphor, they're there as an ever present existential threat to drive the narrative, so it's best to just accept that they are there and conform to a set of arbitrary rules, and not worry that these rules don't really make any sense because this certainly never bothers the writers.

[BasilSeal]

4 hours ago, One4Sorrow2TooBad said:

Walking Dead goes woke, sorry this show won't make it.

it's a limited series with only two proposed seasons, and the second season will already be in the pipeline, it's also clearly going to be instrumental in setting up who the CRM are, and they're integral to the Rick Grimes movies, so it will make it in as far as it will get made, whether many watch it is another matter, but based on the first episode i will for the time being.

[MJ Frog]

54 minutes ago, Nashville said:

Because there’s always a fresh supply of zombies coming in.  If you’ll recall from TWD, everybody living is already infected with the Z virus - so every time someone passes, they’re going to turn unless someone is standing by ready to headspike them as soon as they die.

Yeah, I just thought any remaining groups of people would have made provisions for the proper disposal of their dead by now. You gotta flatten the curve, guys.

[Nashville]

Ok, full disclosure time: I gave up on FTWD in early S4 and hung on with the mothership until they started dropping space junk on people, so initially I wasn’t really inclined to even give this new series a shot - but I decided to TRY to keep an open mind about it for at least the first few episodes. That being said, so far I’m surprised to discover I don’t find it unbearable - at least, not yet.

A few observations, both positive and negative:

- The story line doesn’t absolutely suck; mildly engaging, even if moderately typical.  Plucky Rebellious Angsty Teens (PRATs) versus both their Zombieland environment and The Establishment (in the form of the CRM).

- The characters almost set your teeth on edge but somehow manage to avoid it - just barely.  Our starting quartet of PRATs consists of:

1. Rebellion Sister - runs on pure instinct to the exclusion of all else.  Ten minutes in you already know (a) she’s the primary focal character and (b) she’ll be the one who constantly thinks the worst, and will constantly be proven right.
2. Conformity Sister - has run on pure logic in the past, but is now trying to marry the Vulcan half of her brain to the human half.  Expect her to be rewarded a la individual emotional dog treats whenever she gives in to her instincts.
3. Discount Dr. Who - carries a Popeil Pocket Fisherman instead of a sonic screwdriver, and has succeeded in assembling a wardrobe so godawful ugly even the walkers are put off.  Eugene without the mullet or the atrocious accent.
4. Hodor Lite - he big guy, carry big wrench, not talk much.  Could be fucking Einstein for all we know, but TPTB aren’t giving us much to work on yet.

 

maybe more later, but I have to turn in.

[Nashville]

One last note, though: for GOD’s sake PLEASE lose the Liz Phair-wannabe wailing that’s constantly playing in the background before I slice my fucking wrists.

[maystone]

1 hour ago, Nashville said:

Discount Dr. Who - carries a Popeil Pocket Fisherman instead of a sonic screwdriver, and has succeeded in assembling a wardrobe so godawful ugly even the walkers are put off.  Eugene without the mullet or the atrocious accent.

 

That's who I saw, too. But since they're channeling my favorite Doctor - Tom Baker's the Fourth Doctor - I'm predisposed to enjoy him for a bit.

[Mr. Sparkle]

1 hour ago, Nashville said:

1. Hodor Lite - he big guy, carry big wrench, not talk much.  Could be fucking Einstein for all we know, but TPTB aren’t giving us much to work on yet.

 

They're setting him up for a backstory to end all backstories. 

1 hour ago, Nashville said:

One last note, though: for GOD’s sake PLEASE lose the Liz Phair-wannabe wailing that’s constantly playing in the background before I slice my fucking wrists.

Ha! "In-sig-NIF-i-CAHNT. In-sig-NIF-i-CAHNT." 

4 hours ago, BasilSeal said:

Among other things, they defy the first law of thermodynamics, energy can neither be created or destroyed. they're made of dead tissue, so how do they convert what they eat into energy? and even if they don't eat anything (or anyone), they still keep going, but what powers them? where do they derive the energy to keep moving indefinitely?

Not to mention knees and other joints just wearing out. Most of them would just be lying on the ground at this point. 

[BasilSeal]

8 hours ago, Nashville said:

he big guy, carry big wrench

technically, it's not a wrench, it' a podging spanner. it's for steel erecting or boiler making, you use the pointed handle to line up two holes in steel beams or plate so you can get a bolt through. that's a pretty big one though, one wonders what he was bolting together in the university maintenance dept. 

[Nashville]

1 hour ago, BasilSeal said:

technically, it's not a wrench, it' a podging spanner.

Technically it’s not a podging spanner, it’s a podger spanner - but regardless of what you call it, there’s still a big-ass wrench on one end.  😎

[iMonrey]

OK against my better judgment I checked this pilot out. It only left me with questions. 

Hope and Iris are supposed to be sisters, huh? Are one or both of them adopted? Because they look about as much alike as me and C-PEO. 

The kid in the corduroy suit's mother is the one Hope shot when she was a kid, huh? Well they did a crap job establishing that. I wouldn't have known if not for this forum. We didn't really see enough of her in the flashback and she was all messed up. I didn't recognize her picture in the closing scene. 

Is this story supposed to be taking place simultaneously with The Walking Dead? They said it was 10 years in and that's about how far along TWD is, give or take. In fact given the recent time jump, TWD is even further along. So why hasn't any of the folks at TWD heard of this CRM thing? Hilltop, Alexandria et. al. are near the capital after all. The CRM has abandoned the east coast? How is this campus so pristine and functional when the characters on TWD are living like they're in the stone age? 

Overall I thought this was pretty meh but it's not like there's a heap of new programs to watch right now.

[Nashville]

On 10/4/2020 at 11:12 PM, theredhead77 said:

I think sketchy military lady had the residents all killed and those "empties" were them. I feel like I should have recognized the one in the flannel.

I was under the impression Flannel was the chick who was smoking and gossiping about Silas in his episode intro - the one who was saying he ought to be in jail.

[theredhead77]

5 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Hope and Iris are supposed to be sisters, huh? Are one or both of them adopted?

Half siblings, step siblings, adopted siblings, product of an affair siblings. Numerous reasons that they don't look like siblings.

 

5 hours ago, Nashville said:

I was under the impression Flannel was the chick who was smoking and gossiping about Silas in his episode intro - the one who was saying he ought to be in jail.

Good memory! 

[BasilSeal]

21 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

How is this campus so pristine and functional when the characters on TWD are living like they're in the stone age? 

They never met Rick.

all of the TWD enclaves would have functioned much better had they not had to fight a war every year. doing that has burned through  both people and resources. the campus colony goes against what has always been the core message of TWD, that any large group or organised safe haven will eventually fail, something bad will happen, or bad people will come along and fuck it up for you for shits and giggles.

It doesn't have to be like that though, and it's only that way in TWD because kirkman wrote a misery porn comic that was all about gross horrible things happening to the protagonists. It wouldn't be that hard to secure an area against walkers, lots of already existent buildings  would lend themselves to this, like a walled campus.

Now with the right leadership, and the reasonable good fortune not to encounter multiple batshit mental people who keep heads in jars or cosplay as corpses, in ten years you could build a functioning community. the main obstacle is that no matter how well equipped you are to start with, stuff wears out of gets used up, (or in TWD you blow it up or burn it down whilst escaping from mental people).

However, with a big enough pool of people, you'd have someone with the skills to repair all this stuff, another obstacle is the spare parts, but in a world where over 99% of the population is dead, there must be warehouses full of such stuff if you just know where they are.

What wasn't clear with the campus colony was how they fed everyone, but that's not an insurmountable problem. building a functioning society in these circumstances wouldn't be beyond the wit of man, it's just that the protagonists in TWD are very, very unlucky.

[paulvdb]

11 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Hope and Iris are supposed to be sisters, huh? Are one or both of them adopted? Because they look about as much alike as me and C-PEO. 

I thought they mentioned something about one of them being adopted.

[Kdawg82]

Weird show. I don't get it. I don't like it. Then again it's probably in line with what the OG has become the last few years. (Sigh)

[BasilSeal]

5 hours ago, paulvdb said:

I thought they mentioned something about one of them being adopted.

I don't recall that but they must have as according to the show's wiki, she is adopted, which would make sense as she appears to be the same age as her sister and a different ethnicity to both her parents.

https://walkingdead.fandom.com/wiki/Hope_Bennett_(World_Beyond)

Maybe they cast the roles and thought: 'these girls look nothing like sisters, let's make one adopted', or perhaps they wanted them to be very different in appearance from the outset to highlight their differing views on how to proceed with life in the apocalypse. Iris abandons art for science, because science is more important for the future, where as Hope lives for the now as she doesn't think there'll be a future.

Hope has, er, abandoned hope. See what they did there?

1 minute ago, Kdawg82 said:

Weird show. I don't get it. I don't like it. Then again it's probably in line with what the OG has become the last few years. (Sigh)

if only there was some way you could avoid watching it.

[tv echo]

I didn't see a media thread for this show, so here's some reviews of the first episode...

The premiere of The Walking Dead: World Beyond fails to come alive
Alex McLevy   October 4, 2020
https://tv.avclub.com/the-premiere-of-the-walking-dead-world-beyond-fails-to-1845218536 

Quote

People in The Walking Dead: World Beyond love to give speeches. Rarely does more than a minute go by before someone is earnestly monologuing at someone else, usually about how difficult this life is, and how they’ve got to be brave and carry on. One would think that, ten years into the zombie apocalypse, such thoughts would have long ago become part of the furniture; here, they’re treated with the kind of gravitas and urgency that makes it seem as though society collapsed mere weeks ago. But even if they’re fitting thoughts for the present circumstances, it’s a hell of a lot of speechifying. And that’s World Beyond in its opening hour: a lot of talk, and not much to show for it.

... But the biggest issue with the show thus far is how it makes the rookie mistake of treating its clear mission to be more YA-friendly as an excuse to be more simplistic. The teenagers tend to speak in that overly mannered way that comes across like an older person’s idea of how a precocious kid would talk. Characters are constantly telling each other what they’re like, rather than letting actions do it for them. And nearly everything is spelled out more than once, as though the series is worried its audience will be too distracted to register anything unless it’s hammered home repeatedly, with blunt force and even blunter language.
*  *  *
Iris and Hope, the sisters who form the backbone of this story, have a relationship that sometimes feels believable, and sometimes resembles two people who are just giving each other periodic updates on daily life. ...

It’s tough to say how much of the clumsier character beats are the fault of this script and how much are actors struggling to find the souls of these as-yet undeveloped people, but whichever the case, it makes for some painful viewing at times. Poor Annet Mahendru, so good in The Americans, seems especially defeated by the material, trying to sell Huck’s jocular ease but mostly seeming like someone pretending to be easygoing and failing. “People call me Huck. Long story,” she says while introducing herself to Kublick. Why the need to say “long story”? It’s a perfectly normal name. World Beyond keeps saddling its protagonists with lines meant to tease future reveals about them, and nearly all of them feel forced.

‘The Walking Dead: World Beyond’ Episode 1 Review: The Boring Version Of A Zombie Apocalypse
Erik Kain   October 4, 2020
https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2020/10/04/the-walking-dead-world-beyond-episode-1-review-the-boring-version-of-a-zombie-apocalypse/#5f947d1c5543 

Quote

Corny and boring. World Beyond, at least in its series premiere, is a snoozefest filled with (mostly) uninteresting characters who will likely appeal more to a younger audience than yours truly.
*  *  *
World Beyond feels like a show that wants to succeed with a much more specific demographic: Teenagers and young adults—and specifically those teenagers and young adults who appreciate good wholesome stuff over edgy or grimdark. World Beyond is sappy in ways that The Walking Dead, even at its worst, could never match. Fear The Walking Dead only flirted with sappy in its last two abysmal seasons. ...
*  *  *
So admittedly some of this stuff is interesting. I suppose mostly I’m just not terribly fond of how it’s all told. It doesn’t feel like a Walking Dead show for the most part. It’s too cloying and too teenagey (but without the stuff that makes good teenage stuff interesting—this is not funny like The Breakfast Club or Fast Times At Ridgemont High or sexy or gripping like the early seasons of The 100).

‘The Walking Dead: World Beyond’ Review: ‘Brave’ Promises More of the Same ‘Walking Dead’ Action
By Jeff Stone   October 4, 2020
https://www.indiewire.com/2020/10/the-walking-dead-world-beyond-brave-review-1234590166/ 

Quote

... Yet here we have “The Walking Dead: World Beyond,” a “limited series event” that promises to view the “Walking Dead” universe through the eyes of teenagers that have come of age in the zombie apocalypse.

It’s a solid enough premise on paper, but unfortunately, “Brave,” the “World Beyond” pilot, introduces a troupe of typical stock characters and sets them off to traipse through the abandoned towns and zombie-filled forests that viewers have seen many, many times before in this franchise.
*  *  *
... In the episode’s most groan-inducing moment, the audience learns that said pregnant woman was actually Elton’s mother, an absolute howler of a contrivance that promises plenty of eyeroll-worthy drama down the line.

But that’s the big problem with “World Beyond.” Its drama feels contrived and manufactured, less born of characters bouncing off of each other and more “we gotta fill time on this new spinoff.” Nothing about it is essential, or even that interesting. Diehards might enjoy it, simply because it promises to deliver exactly the same stuff they’ve been watching for the last 10 years. Everyone else can safely give it a pass.
*  *  *
• Seriously, how hard did you laugh at the revelation about Elton’s mom? Because I laughed very hard.

[Review] “The Walking Dead: World Beyond” Breathes Fresh Yet Mediocre Air into AMC’s Zombie Universe
By Noah Levine   October 6, 2020
https://bloody-disgusting.com/tv/3635461/review-walking-dead-world-beyond-breathes-fresh-yet-mediocre-air-amcs-zombie-universe/ 

Quote

Despite bleak subject matter, the overall tone of “World Beyond” feels lighter than “The Walking Dead.” The entire visual aesthetic feels very much like young-adult style shows, with well-lit cinematography and squeaky clean visuals. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s very jarring coming right off of “The Walking Dead’s” oppressive and unsettling palette. 
*  *  *
Aliyah Royale is front and center in the role of Iris. Most of the premiere episode revolves around her, and the preparation of her “Remembrance Day” speech in front of the CRM. She’s strong-willed, confident, and overwhelmingly positive. Royale is not a bad actor per say, but her smiling portrayal just reads unrealistic in the world of the show. I assume things will change as the series turns darker, but as of now her performance just sticks out like a sore thumb. 

Hope (Alexa Mansour) feels like a much more appropriate addition to the character roster. She’s plagued by the trauma of losing her mom during the beginning of the apocalypse, and has an utter hatred toward the mischievous CRM. She’s the opposite of Iris, and her scowling attitude reads like an accurate portrayal of a teenager in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. She even learned to make her own booze, which then gets confiscated by the community’s “police.” 
*  *  *
If there’s one thing “World Beyond” does on par, and if not better, than the main show it’s the walker designs. The walkers in this series are downright nasty. During a flashback sequence, a small child bears witness to a zombified man caught in the wiring of a crashed plane. The creature shrieks and growls as electricity sparks around him. It’s an awesome horror visual that would feel right at home in a Romero-directed “of the Dead” film. Since the series takes place 10 years into the apocalypse, the present-day zombies are especially decomposed and goopy. Based on the promotional material for later episodes, it seems like we will be getting some killer walker designs in the future. 

 

Edited October 7, 2020 by tv echo

[txhorns79]

10 hours ago, BasilSeal said:

What wasn't clear with the campus colony was how they fed everyone, but that's not an insurmountable problem. building a functioning society in these circumstances wouldn't be beyond the wit of man, it's just that the protagonists in TWD are very, very unlucky.

I had many questions about the campus colony.  Food supply was definitely one thing.  Where they got supplies for all the incidental things (karate uniforms!), new-ish looking clothes, etc.  We saw their power plant, and I guess they have some kind of water supply for the campus, but I did wonder about everything else. 

[BasilSeal]

4 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

Even though it is a limited series, I seriously doubt that there won't be a floor in terms of ratings.  In other words, even with a limited series it is possible for the ratings to get so bad that it won't finish its run.

There's only going to be two seasons and they're already working on the second one so there's no way this isn't going to get made, barring and actual apocalypse, obviously. It may well tank, but they'll just rejig the second series accordingly, and they'll make their money back on streaming rights anyway. The show runners are planning TWD content for years in advance, and this is already baked into that plan.

you may well be right that it doesn't do well, but a walking dead show isn't going to get shitcanned after just one season, and this show is only scheduled for two seasons anyway, so it will get made, even if it's a total turkey.

[BasilSeal]

1 hour ago, txhorns79 said:

I had many questions about the campus colony.  Food supply was definitely one thing.  Where they got supplies for all the incidental things (karate uniforms!), new-ish looking clothes, etc.  We saw their power plant, and I guess they have some kind of water supply for the campus, but I did wonder about everything else. 

I suppose that a university campus might well have it's own aquafers for water supply, so that could explain the water. As for the uniforms etc, the key to maintaining pre apocalypse standards of living would be to maintain some level of manufacturing ability.  you need to be able to make complex stuff. Everything from clothes and cooking utensils to parts for their vehicles and those sticks with the retractable  zombie stabbers on the end.

the zombie apocalypse is killing people, it's not destroying manufacturing capacity, the factories and businesses that made stuff will still be there and the infrastructure in place ready to be taken over or hauled back to your own base to be used. now you couldn't do that with a group of 20 or even 100 people, but nearly 10K?  not everyone would be needed for the day to day business of surviving, you could put dedicated teams onto sourcing equipment and raw materials.

Food is a bit more of an issue, you'd be wanting a sizable area of market garden to feed all those people, a few raised beds in the courtyard won't cut it, perhaps they have a satellite colony somewhere else  rural that does the growing?

[iMonrey]

Quote

To compare, ratings for TWD 10x16 episode on the same night were 0.87 (demo) and 2.73 M (viewers):

Wow, that's not good either. 2.73 M for the OG show. That's gotta be a new low.

[rmontro]

On 10/6/2020 at 3:18 AM, BasilSeal said:

it's a limited series with only two proposed seasons, and the second season will already be in the pipeline, it's also clearly going to be instrumental in setting up who the CRM are, and they're integral to the Rick Grimes movies, so it will make it in as far as it will get made, whether many watch it is another matter, but based on the first episode i will for the time being.

I wasn't aware this was a limited series, that actually makes me more likely to watch.  Shows they have a specific story they want to tell with a beginning and an end.  Series get tedious once they start to meander.  As it is, right now I'm on a show by show basis, but I plan to watch it next week at least.  Now let's hope they don't double cross us and make a season three!  

[Kdawg82]

On 10/7/2020 at 8:38 AM, BasilSeal said:

if only there was some way you could avoid watching it

Badum hisss! 

Noted