Walking Dead on AMC

If the makers of this show were really funny they'd include a quick scene of a background zombie that looks like how Micheal Jackson looked in Thriller or some-such.

Well, prepare to be disappointed. The comic is currently on issue 78, and there is no indication as to why/how there are zombies walking the earth. The closest to that we have is earlier on, when...

::::SPOILERS AHOY!!!::::
...someone commits suicide, then comes back as a zombie. This is when the survivors learn that one does not need to be bitten to become a zombie. Whatever it is, everyone already has it. Once you die, you come back. Thus the title of the series, "The Walking Dead". It doesn't refer just to the zombies, but to the still living as well.
::::AVAST SPOILERS!::::

However, I really think you are setting the bar too high. NONE of the survivors is a scientist, much less one with a grounding in biology/physiology to even begin to research what happened. These are just regular people trying to stay alive. Society collapsed pretty quickly after the zombies appeared, and if anyone has figured out what caused them, that person is nowhere near "our" group of survivors.

As stated earlier, this show is not focused on the zombies. It is about the survivors.

Proper context? I'm not sure this is really an accurate way to approach the series. How does it matter how it came to be? It's there. It happened. Whether science made it, nature made it, or magic made it, it's there. The events would unfold the same. The real core of the show is how the characters react to it. There's been nothing on the show that treats itself as a mystery, so it would be a shame to try to watch the show as one.

And keep in mind that if a real zombie apocalypse came along, there's pretty decent odds those left would never now how it started either.

I really don't think I'm "setting the bar too high" for this. I realize none of the survivors are scientists or superheroes or anything like that. As I said I don't really care if they don't/can't "save the world" or even figure out everything about everything.

I just have to assume that at the very least the survivors would reveal some "working theories" as to what happened amongst themselves and/or maybe from time-to-time they'll stumble over bits and pieces of info or maybe another survivor who'll tell them what happened "over the next hill" so to speak.

I don't need this story to turn into some kind of global "War of the Worlds" kind of thing. I just think if they keep this small group of people in a perfect static bubble without any outside context at all it's going to quickly annoy me. Frankly if the original comic didn't provide that kind of context I hope that'll be a change the TV show makes to correct that oversight. *shrugs*

I don't need to know precise details like "some government scientist in Area 52 dropped a vial of super-zombie juice and everyone became a zombie." No, I don't assume that any of our characters would ever know that.

But by the same token I think it would be incredibly odd if throughout the course of this show we NEVER see anyone talk about it amongst themselves. Surely the survivors would be curious about what happened. Surely some of them might decide they want to leave to go try to "find out" what happened. Don't you think they OUGHT to be slightly curious as to why civilization collapsed? Don't you think they'd be motivated to try to find something better even if that's a hopeless dream for them?

I actually like that this show is focused on a few people trying to survive instead of it being like some kind of cheesy global "Independence Day" type story. But if the question of "WTF happened?" doesn't get dealt with at least in some form or fashion this story is just going to seem ultimately pointless to me.

I laughed, I cried, I tinkled in my Calvin Kleins.

Certainly, it would only be natural for them to wonder and more credible if they do, but I wouldn't get upset if there was never a definitive answer.

As for a situation for a group wanting to find out what started it all? To me, that would be even less believable. Unless they come across someone who was closely involved or around ground zero of the event, how would they even know where to start looking for answers. It wouldn't just be a suicide run, it would be a suicide run without a plan. And if they do run into someone who would know, it would feel too coincidental. Too Deus ex Machina.

There's also the advantage of having an unknown. And this show, which to this point has played up suspense very well, has a huge helping hand with having a horrific element that has no known origin. You fear what you don't know and the characters don't know much about the zombies. Their fear is what sells the suspense. Why get rid of that?

Love it!

****SPOILERS AHEAD******





In the later issues, like volume 10 or 11ish, Rick and group come across someone who claims to be working on solving the zombie problem. He basically looks like a redneck, but seems like a scientist type. They are trying to get to D.C. to a secure governmental base.

I haven't read the latest volume, nor the latest issues, so I don't know what happens with that town they run across. The last volume I have is the one with the Hunters, iirc.

The problem I'm having with the show is that they seem to be treating ALL of the human survivors as if they were in a coma and just woke up to find civilization gone. I can understand that's the way Rick is having to deal with what's going on because he literally did just wake up to it all. But all the other survivors supposedly actually lived through it and should know SOMETHING about what happened.

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that it took a full week for the zombies to spread everywhere as we see them in the show. With that it would seem reasonable that at least for the first day or two after it started there would have still been enough "civilization" in place for news to spread that something massive was going on somewhere. Cell phones and satellites would have still been functional for a while. Surely some of the survivors we see in this show would know SOMETHING about what happened and even have a general idea where it might have started.

I simply can't buy the premise that NO ONE knows ANYTHING about what happened. I'd expect Rick to be clueless, but everyone else? Please...

The problem is not "getting rid" of that plot device. The problem is that kind of plot device can't last forever without getting old and ineffective very quickly. It's like trying to make the shower scene in Psycho last for 2 solid hours - after a few minutes it'd lose its "shock value" and just become silly after a while.

Sure I don't mind them playing out the suspense of this "semi-clueless" zombie horror theme for a few more episodes. But if this show doesn't refocus itself into an evolving plot that gives the humans a "purpose" to move towards it's going to get fairly pointless fairly quickly.

I buy it.

How much did you know about 9/11 a month later? Suppose civilization collapsed on 9/19 and you'd spent the ensuing 4 weeks scavenging for food and fighting off people trying to kill you. How much would you know about the cause? Probably about the same amount these characters do.

Again, like I said, I doubt the characters of this show are ever going to be able to know every single detail about what happened. I'm STILL not asking for that.

But I also still don't buy the idea of civilization collapsing instantaneously either. The only way these people would not know ANYTHING about it is if it happened in the wink of an eye. That's a stupid impossibility unless you want to assume things changed via magic or maybe a time travel accident. Do we have any evidence of that in this show?

By all reasonable assumptions the Zombie Apocalypse had to have taken at least several days for things to go from "normal" to "all F'd up". Consider what we saw in the first episode: as Rick stumbled out of the hospital he saw a make-shift morgue where dozens of bodies had been laid out in the apparent chaos of the last few days. Just beyond the morgue he saw a military staging area with supplies and an army helicopter. Obviously there was a point as things were falling apart that the government tried to contain and handle the crisis.

So it's very safe to speculate that there was a period of time, even if that period only lasted a few days, where things were getting bad but there was still enough people and infrastructure around so that news about what was happening would have been available. Our characters might not ever know that "Scientist Smith spilled the super-zombie juice in a government lab 23.5 miles west of Denver, Colorado" but they would have certainly have heard that "Denver was one of the first major cities to fall to zombies".

Please consider the "realities" of what would happen in this situation.
People would have SOME clue as to what happened - and that's all I'm asking for from this show.

I'm not saying you're wrong to think that because I also am inclined towards that. So my question in response is not to refute your point but to offer an alternative point of view.

What if it wasn't super-zombie juice but it just happened one night that the dead got up and went on a spree? It could happen quickly and no one would have any idea why because there is no rational explanation for it leaving only "magic" as the answer.

What could we do but go into all out survival mode? What would anyone know other than one day/night there were zombies popping up killing people?

In this age of 24 hour news and global Internet there still would have been a period of time where everyone would be talking about the "weird things happening in [insert name of city here]" at least a few days before EVERYONE was dealing with those weird things in their backyards. This show has already established the vague idea that the zombie thing is a "disease" and diseases only spread so fast, even if they are airborne and kill people instantly.

I'm sorry but because this story is apparently assuming everyone has selective amnesia about what happened when civilization collapsed I fundamentally have a serious problem enjoying it. Hopefully this TV show will surprise me and become logical at some point.

Well if "magic" was the reason the Zombie Apocalypse happened in this story then I hope that is revealed at some point. I don't need Rick and gang to find the evil wizard who cast the zombie spell and kill him or anything like that. But just to know, as a viewer of the show, what caused it all would be satisfaction enough. *shrugs*

Well even if someone would just say "when I woke up zombies were killing people all over the place" and then someone else would say "I saw on CNN/Fox News/ABC/NBC/CBS that it was happening all over the world at once". That would be enough for me.

I mean they would have to talk about this to the new guy around the campfire just as normal human curiosity and behavior I would think. Even if they know nothing they ought to be speculating about it just as they discuss the known zombie behaviors.

That makes sense, and there would easily have been time for that. There was information about the refugee center in Atlanta, afterall... and that would have been in context of the larger crisis.

This is the kind of thing I'm talking about. I'm not assuming or wishing that 'Rick and Friends' are going to save the world from the zombies. I just want them to react to it as "realistically" as possible. Not talking about what happened with each other would be anything but realistic.

It's these kinds of "vague rumors" and "incomplete facts" about what's going on that's going to drive the plot of this story past the initial "zombie-shock" effect. What worries me is that this TV show is just going to (very oddly) try to avoid addressing this issue at all and be left with nowhere to go plot-wise.

I don't require a second-by-second accounting of these events but yes, at some point, I would like to see it be made a bit more clear what the general timeframes were. When Rick starts to piece together what happened when he was in a coma (especially concerning his wife's and partner's apparently adulterous relationship) we, the audience, should get a better idea of what happened with the zombies in general.

The way I see it, you're the one assuming they have "selective amnesia". Even in the comic, the people aren't shown every second of every day. There are often gaps where a couple of weeks or more have gone by between issues. Perhaps the discussion you would like to see occurred during a "down" time.

It doesn't really bother me not knowing the whys and wherefores - I laughed at the end of Shaun of the Dead when he changed the channel right as the newscaster was going to explain what caused the zombie outbreak. The character didn't want to see it because it was all anyone talked about, and he was tired of it.

Perhaps people aren't talking about it because when we enter the story it's already several weeks after the start of the zombies. They may have already had all of those discussions and bare survival has taken precedence over something that ultimately is of no consequence if you can't do anything about it.

I don't have a problem with you wanting to see them discuss how it all got started. I just don't think it's necessary like you do, and I actually think it might detract from the point of the show. It's not about the zombies or how it all got started, it's about the survivors and how they deal with this ongoing, worldwide, slow-motion disaster of epic proportions.

When your day consists of just trying to get enough to eat, staying alive, in a fugue/shock state most likely, and probably existing on very little sleep, do you really think they are going spend time ruminating on what caused it?

I'd tend to think not, especially when your group just put down 15 of the buggers that day. You aren't going to care what caused it, you are only going to care about what you can do to stay alive another day. Look at them, they are camping out and not really secure. A herd coming in could wipe them out any day.

Horde. Cows and horses travel in herds...Zombies do hordes