S05.E12: Ner Tamid

[nodorothyparker]

Airdate 2019.09.01

Quote

In search of a permanent home for the convoy, Charlie is drawn to a synagogue where she encounters a rabbi surviving on his own. Sarah and Dwight face unexpected foes.

[MVFrostsMyPie]

This episode was so boring and pointless, I'm not even sure what really happened, besides nothing. 

[SamBeckett]

Mid-episode I got so desperate I got up and threw some paint on the wall to watch it dry. Yep ... watching paint dry WAS more exciting.

[OoohMaggie]

Wow! 3 comments by Monday evening (UK Time)

What happened to Wes? that was a story they could really have done something with. So what's the deal now? Finding a new character every week, coupled with exploring the mental anguish of a regular character every week? Sorry Rabbi, but your story was so dull, something we've seen already.

I don't get this constant running away from 'dick squad', after all our group have been through, you would have thought that they would have just set up a few ambushes and taken these muppets out, the few vehicles chasing the convoy could have been creamed with little effort. If the group is so concerned about Max, why the hell do they keep splitting up into 3 or 4 different groups?

Last week had a decent underlying story, last night was just another waste of a week.

[cdnalor]

Something about Charlie's facial expressions and mannerisms reminded me of Fred Savage on Wonder Years to the point where I looked up the actress to see if she might be related to him (she isn't).

[mxc90]

Ugh! Peter Jacobson is on the show. I'm still pissed at his character on Colony and hope he doesn't survive this season (no matter how nice his character is on this show). I'll just imagine it was Alan Synder that was killed. 

[heisenberg]

It was too boring to have anything to say or even laugh about it... 

I just passed by to say hi.  

Hi!  🙋‍♂️

[heisenberg]

2 minutes ago, icemiser69 said:

It is Labor Day weekend in the U.S.   For some it is the last chance for a vacation before the new school year starts.

That said, it seems as though traffic (posting) across the entire site has seriously dropped over the past year.

That does not change the fact there is  nothing to say about that mediocre episode.

[heisenberg]

4 minutes ago, icemiser69 said:

FTWD seriously needs to bring on a Wayne Arnold type of a character.

Oh no please!  Not another Henry.

there are already too much characters on this show anyway.  They need to kill at least half of them before introducing some more.

[Haleth]

5 hours ago, mxc90 said:

Ugh! Peter Jacobson is on the show. I'm still pissed at his character on Colony and hope he doesn't survive this season (no matter how nice his character is on this show). I'll just imagine it was Alan Synder that was killed. 

Well, shoot. My fault for reading the thread before watching the show. I love (to hate) Peter Jacobson. I was excited to see him in the previews. Bummer. 

[heisenberg]

1 hour ago, icemiser69 said:

Most (if not all) of the episodes this season have been rather dull. 

I can't and won't argue with that.  Every week I tell myself they can't go lower than last week and... They do.

[mxc90]

4 minutes ago, Haleth said:

Well, shoot. My fault for reading the thread before watching the show. I love (to hate) Peter Jacobson. I was excited to see him in the previews. Bummer. 

No bummer. All is fine with him this week.

Sorry for the misleading post. He wasn't killed in this episode. 

[diebartdie]

His story was similar to but not the same as FPP in that he did not lock them out, he did not lock them *in* either. He said he had a crisis of faith and went on walk about, came back and everyone was turned. Whatever, similar enough I guess. My nitpick is, why did he insist to Charlie that he *could not* put those walkers down after we saw him put at least one of those walkers down? Sigh. Inconsistency, thy name is Fear the Walking Dead.

[OoohMaggie]

20 hours ago, heisenberg said:

there are already too much characters on this show anyway.  They need to kill at least half of them before introducing some more.

Whenever our group happen upon a seemingly settled group of people such as, Abigail's villa, the seaside hotel ,La Colonia, Broke Jaw ranch, the death and destruction of those people and communities were merely hours away, i'm quite sure the same fate awaits our merry band of redshirts who are circling wagons every evening. Hopefully a few of the regulars  will go with them, ahem Sarah.

[OoohMaggie]

28 minutes ago, icemiser69 said:

What antagonist is going to cull the herd of useless characters?   If that ever happens, I don't think that antagonist has been introduced into the series yet.

As with the scenarios I mentioned, it wont need an antagonist, it will merely take a herd of walkers to accomplish the task.  A ridiculous amount of walkers suddenly appearing out of nowhere and amazingly managing to find their way through whatever defences have been erected. How many times have we witnessed that?

[SamBeckett]

I just saw an ad for Mr. Robot. I never saw the show, but I know it’s been well-received. The ad I just saw said it was ending this year after three seasons.

Think of FTWD and how it’s been dribbling out nonsense this last season or two (or longer). Just think if it had maintained its promise when it first aired to show the world falling apart near the beginning. The first season, though not perfect, was so much better because it focused on the “surprise” of the apocalypse.

It could have run for 3 or 4 seasons then, through clever writing, be wrapped into TWD.

But, alas, no. The bean-counters are being greedy and milking the cash-cow for everything they can, quality be damned.

Soon, we’re going to have a very special “kid’s edition.”

Edited September 3, 2019 by SamBeckett

[nodorothyparker]

I honestly forgot about the episode thread this week, which probably says something about the episode itself.

This probably wouldn't have been a bad episode had it aired a couple of seasons ago or had we not already seen versions of this story play out on the mother show with FPP or this one one season ago with Naomi/Laura/June, who also went on walkabout for reasons and returned to find everybody turned.  But at this point everyone is so deadly earnest about wanting to be good and helpful and trying to be better people that it's just coming off deadly dull.  As treacly as the show has been lately, I was honestly expecting the addition of the rabbi to be a pretext for a soppy John-June ZA wedding.  And yes, I realize that one of my defenses of this show for awhile has been that I generally liked most of the characters (and the actors playing them) and appreciated that they weren't all striving to be the most assholey assholes to ever asshole.  (Hi, mothershow.)  But there's precious little conflict or much of anything to struggle against as the zombies seem to be mostly mild annoyances at best now and their sole big bad is a bitchy old guy being bitchy about property ownership in the ZA and seemingly being cryptic for the sake of being cryptic.  There's so many characters that we're only seeing many once or twice a half season and since nobody's been killed off in forever, the stakes of whatever it is they're up to feel practically nonexistent.  Nearly a full season in, I still have no idea what Bitchy Max Headroom's motivation is or what's "bigger than any of them" and probably wouldn't much care at this point if he ever gets around to telling us.  That sucks because I like Matt Frewer well enough, but an actor can only do so much with what they're given.

[heisenberg]

1 hour ago, SamBeckett said:

Soon, we’re going to have a very special “kid’s edition.”

Yeah, the gang will go rescue Santa Claus and his deers.  

Edited September 3, 2019 by heisenberg

[Ohwell]

And I'm sick of the friggin' walkie talkies.

[nodorothyparker]

Given how freely and at what length our heroes seem to need to share all their basic information and location as well as whatever emotional psychobabble seems to be in their heads on any given day, how are they at all surprised that they're so easy to find or that whoever's listening knows all about them?  Morgan's shocked just shocked that Logan knew that he lost his wife and son, yet they're also leaving detailed tapes of themselves talking about themselves laying about.  Maybe a little selective editing and some kind of code is in order if they're going to insist on continuing with the walkie talkies and CBs.

Come to think of it, we saw this story on this very show too several seasons ago when Alicia was playing ham radio social media with a group of pirates on Strand's yacht.  Only at least then Strand was still Strandy enough to realize oversharing with strangers when you didn't know their intent wasn't a good idea.

[Haleth]

I didn’t hate it. I don’t mind quieter episodes where we get some insight into recurring characters. 

[OoohMaggie]

14 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

The writers and the showrunner need to start "getting into the weeds" when it comes to storytelling.  There have been too many damn short cuts.   Too many surface story lines with lack of in depth character and story development.

Apart from a lot of the writing being dull and often ridiculous, i've long believed the main problem, with both the shows, is because there is no continuity, there are too many writers and directors. This is why the quality is all over the place. Many people believe that there are two or three writers and a couple of directors, HaHa!                                                                                                                                                   Just this season, up to and including Ner Tamid we've had, 11 writers and 9 directors. How the hell is the show supposed to pick up the ball and run with it when so many people have different ideas and techniques. It must be a nightmare for the actors, they don't have a chance to gel with these people. Get one or two quality writers, one director and let them form a close knit team with the actors, then give them a full season to work with.

Edited September 5, 2019 by OoohMaggie

[OoohMaggie]

Absolutely a legitimate comment, the people in everyday charge of the show are the show runners, Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg, who also by the way have co-written a few of the episodes we've seen this  season. 

The one factor that mustn't be overlooked in all of this, is the influence that the dark shadow of Scott 'The Gimp' Gimple has had on what we've seen on screen, he has rightly, in my and many others opinions, been held responsible for the ruination of the mothership, and after doing so was 'promoted?'  to be in complete charge  of the whole Walking Dead universe. One can only wonder what influence he's had on the Fear universe since then.

Edited September 6, 2019 by OoohMaggie
missed out 'held'

[DrNowsWeightScale]

That was one boring episode.

Fear seems to be rehashing storylines or tricks used earlier on Fear or ones from the original (TWD).

In this program, for example, the kid and the rabbi used the horn (shofar??) - noise - to lure the zombies away from June and John.

We've seen the original show and this one use the same trick previously, but usually via a boom box or stereo system. The novelty starts to wear off after awhile.

There aren't any character arcs, not really.

We're supposed to think that Alicia felt the need to atone for her bad past, but IMO, she never went full-on Negan / evil. Most to all of her actions were understandable, but the show spent part of this season having her atone for her past, or talk about needing to.

The storylines are thin gruel.

I'm not a Walking Dead hater. I would like for both shows to do well and be fun to watch.

I've loved zombie themed entertainment since I was a kid, I'm still watching the original TWD (I even sat through the very dull season six to eight Rick Vs. Negan war), and even I am tempted to find something else to watch Sunday nights rather than Fear.

The show is totally wasting their John Dorie character, which is sad and frustrating for me to watch week in and week out.

Other than the "he's alone in his cabin" episode, and maybe a couple with Morgan (when he was looking for June/Laura), we've not had any decent Dorie episodes. 

I'm not sure how I feel about the one where Dorie returns to Humbug Gulch and splits a bullet on an axe.

I guess I feel very "meh" about that one(?). Great character, and the actor is doing a fine job, but the storylines for him are either "blah" or cringe worthy.

Here are a few reviews from other sites:

'Fear The Walking Dead' Season 5, Episode 12: 'Ner Tamid' Is Another Miss

‘Fear the Walking Dead’ Suffers A Huge One Week Ratings Drop

‘Fear The Walking Dead’ Continues To Suffer From Awkward Continuity Problems

[raven]

On 9/3/2019 at 7:54 PM, Haleth said:

I didn’t hate it. I don’t mind quieter episodes where we get some insight into recurring characters. 

I didn't hate it either but I have an odd, soft spot for this show.  I like most characters and think the acting ranges from decent to very good.

I don't mind quiet episodes either and I'm happy we don't have to deal with a villain who's a cannibal or a rapist or whatever.

It just seems sometimes that there's no there there.  I actually don't mind some meandering but they really couldn't think of a newer story for the Peter Jacobson character?  Plus we have so many characters we don't see enough of our supposed leads; a few of us wondered what Alicia's issue was.   Sometimes I like the show and sometimes I like it in spite of itself and then sometimes I feel like it's squandering potential.

[heisenberg]

On 9/5/2019 at 6:45 AM, OoohMaggie said:

Apart from a lot of the writing being dull and often ridiculous, i've long believed the main problem, with both the shows, is because there is no continuity, there are too many writers and directors. This is why the quality is all over the place. Many people believe that there are two or three writers and a couple of directors, HaHa!                                                                                                                                                   Just this season, up to and including Ner Tamid we've had, 11 writers and 9 directors. How the hell is the show supposed to pick up the ball and run with it when so many people have different ideas and techniques. It must be a nightmare for the actors, they don't have a chance to gel with these people. Get one or two quality writers, one director and let them form a close knit team with the actors, then give them a full season to work with.

And you can put Lawyers (You can say this, you can't say that),  publicists who does product placement (5 GM pick-up trucks in the same frame, or certain models of guns proudly shown),  IFC executives having requests for the show. 

[Davidhp]

Do the writers and network really think this show is entertaining.  They have made it so boring they are pushing away viewers.   Like others have stated, the cat is the only character worth caring about,  Calling this a soap opera is an insult to soap operas, but it is trying to be super pretentious with an implausible plot of leaving small boxes of supplies around, when food and clean water resources are becoming more and more rare.  Survival in this time of no civilization should be the primary concern, but its not.  These people would have all died already because of their philosophizing instead of growing and gathering resources and creating a safe shelter.

[ByTor]

On 9/2/2019 at 6:58 PM, diebartdie said:

My nitpick is, why did he insist to Charlie that he *could not* put those walkers down after we saw him put at least one of those walkers down? 

I assumed the ones we saw him put down were the ones who got through the fence, not his congregation.  When you're an apologist for this show like I am, you'll manage to come up with something 🙂 

On 9/5/2019 at 8:52 PM, raven said:

I didn't hate it either but I have an odd, soft spot for this show.  I like most characters and think the acting ranges from decent to very good.

Right there with you, except in this case, and quite honestly for the 1st time in my life history of watching TV, I like every single one of the protagonists...yep, I even love Sarah!