Welcome to Thunderdome

One character from TWD or FTWD is crossing over.

They are on different sides of the country, and FTWD is set earlier in the time line, so that will make it interesting. What doesn't make it interesting is I have longed wished for every character on FTWD to die because they're all insanely unlikable.

Just watched Ep 2 of this season, the Rick v. Neagan season, apparently.

This episode could have had half the run time if they didn't take a long, lingering face shot of the entire cast in slow motion, one at a time.

Season 8 is "All Out War".

We just watched episode 8 and it is the weirdest directed episode ever. It doesn't start getting really weird until late. Also, people don't understand the strength of tigers.

Tigers with a natural ability to distinguish good guys from bad on a crazy battlefield.

That didn't bug me as much as what happens in the fourth episode.

I could argue that the tiger was trained to not attack the "uniform" of the kingdom. What happens in episode 4 is just...it doesn't behave properly...

Richard Parker, nooooo!

How badly directed was that episode, particularly the end? WTF was up with the off close ups of the three zombies towards the end?

This show has been kicking butt, but that episode was strange. And don't get me started on Carol's inability to act before people split up and get to cover.

A waste of a really good performance from the king.

Was his "Yet I smile.." speech from anything, or did they write that for the show? It was good.

Not sure. The show has now passed the last book I read over a year ago.

Well...almost. I got to the end of the war, so I know what is coming next, but not after that.

TheCatt wrote:

This is very accurate. I noticed some time back that each episode spends an hour advancing a story that could have been told in about 5-10 minutes. The mid season finale I was getting that feeling of "do I want to keep watching this?" again". I think this is explaining why. Right now things are going south for Rick's merry band. So 80% of the show is just dread of bad stuff until you get to the next significant event for the plot.

Welcome to every show ever created for network TV.

They're all formulaic. Every episode of House, ER, NYPD Blue, etc. were all the same just with different actors and settings.

TWD is a bit different in that it's on cable, but it's still not a Netflix show. TWD's biggest sin is not having an end planned. (Although all the behind the scenes crap from AMC the first few seasons didn't help either.

If TWD was a Netflix show and they came in and said, "We want to do 5 seasons." It'd be perfect.

That's what GoT got right. They had a plan. Of course, it still drags massively at times (I have no memory of watching entire seasons, that how unremarkable they were), and those first two seasons are fucking brutal.

Both shows get saved by interesting settings and fantastic acting.

Leisher wrote: Welcome to every show ever created for network TV.

I would disagree on the specifics here. I do agree that all shows are formulaic. Smallville launched right before the notion of "binging" on a series became a thing, and the first two seasons are so formulaic that they're almost unbingable. Just really bad. Not taken individually, but one after the other is almost comical they are so cookie cutter.

I'll compare it to one the other series I watch, say The Flash for instance. Each season of The Flash has had a long season arc. A big baddie that's out to get Barry in his diabolical machinations. Each episode is an installment of that plan, a self contained chapter with bits that forward the seasonal arc. The yellow and the pink in Catt's graphic is the self contained part of that episode. TWD really doesn't have a self contained story in each episode. But like The Flash they only introduce a couple of points each episode that contributes towards the overall story arc. So I end up feeling like there's a whole lot of filler going on. The last couple of seasons have seemed worse in that regard.

It may simply be that I've become so attuned to the writers' direction that at the end of the episode I have a good feel of what was germane and what was filler, where as earlier it was all part of the story. I don't know. Just feels like less meat in each hour every week. That may tie back to what you were saying about not having an end defined and they're starting to run out of material.

You are correct about shows with season/series long arcs.

You also made me think of another really good point. Too many episodes of TWD.

GoT has 10-12 per season, and the latest had 8 or something like that. 10-12 is a perfect amount to tell a story. (Peeps complained about the latest season being too short and the story telling being too condensed.)

TWD, being on "regular TV" does something like 16 episode seasons. It's too much. They're forced to drag stories out too far.

I've never read the comics. Are they nearing being caught up with the big story lines?

I honestly don't know. I haven't picked up a TPB in a while.

Potential major spoiler here.

This doesn't bode well for the series' future.