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jriddle73's Replies
Yeah, I've been meaning to look up the hypertext code here. Non-clickable links are never really a good way to go.
The last ep I liked was whatever the last good one was, so it's probably been a while. But there are good moments here and there. Whenever it apes Z NATION, it's usually entertaining. The "zombie lawnmower" this season was the best thing that's happened on the show since the season 5 opener.
Thanks. I try. I tinkered with this one a bit this morning--it felt very disjointed to me and still does. Sort of like the ep itself.
"a synopsis of the episode isn't really a criticism."
I certainly agree with that. Most amateur "criticism" on the internet is merely synopsis. Mine never has been and neither was this article. Some exposition is necessary to critique what happened.
Ha! Pretty sure I don't fall into either of those categories.
Yeah, I wish I'd remembered to write about that. It's my recollection that Maggie actually was showing for a while. She certainly isn't anymore.
Added an update correcting the business about Gavin insisting Richard continue attending the Kingdom/Saviors meetings.
We need emoticons here for that!
"But you spent so much time raking Carol over a barrel, you must not have had any more time (or interest) in going after Morgan"
I spent a LOT of time on Morgan last year, quite angry that the guy who had been one of the most anticipated characters on the show was ruined with that whole peacenik nonsense, which, in effect, locked him in as the guy who perpetually gets people killed because he refuses to do what needs to be done.
I actually like Carol 2.0 and 3.0 but they were no more an organic development of what came before as was Morgan. They were just more entertaining.
"did not deserve getting murdered in cold blood by Morgan, either. Yeah, beat the living crap out of him, sure, but execute him?!"
Richard murdered that kid as surely as if he'd pulled the trigger himself. Even though his plan didn't go the way he wanted it, it still worked--it showed everyone the Saviors are unreasonable thugs. If they're willing to murder over a melon, no deal with them is going to hold for long.
"I don't think my Rickster has been"
Actually, there have been about 10 completely different versions of Rick so far--probably more than any other single character (I'd have to do a head-count but as I reacall, the last time I did, it was already up to 7).
"If you're not going to make it look real, at least take the time to get a real deer."
In Georgia, you can get nearly every kind of animal actor. I suppose it's possible there were no real deer available when they needed to shoot but it seems pretty unlikely. In Atlanta, you can get camels, zebras, even kangaroos for movies; you can't come up with a single real deer in a state that has over 1 million of them? Animals can be a real pain on a set but I can't believe a real one, which you'd only need for two scenes, wouldn't be much cheaper than creating an entirely CGI one.
Part of that divide-up-the-cast thing was money-driven--everyone signs a five-year contract but after that, they get a big raise, so the incentive is to use them less--but part of it is just the showrunner's preference--Gimple has always preferred to do this. He, in fact, did it back when he was just a writer, before he ran things, and continued it when he took over, which was before those money-pressures started.
Filler, which is really the problem here, has been a serious problem for the series from when Mazzara took over to the present. It certainly isn't new. By the end of Mazzara's reign, in fact, the writers were doing so little work that production had to be repeatedly shut down for lack of material to shoot (which is why Mazzara was fired in the first place). As a practical matter, it's always a lot more work to properly plot an episode of a television series than to simply throw out some one-line-item idea one dreamed up in two minutes then fill out the running time with padding. TWD viewers have been unwilling to punish the show for this sort of behavior, which is why it has continued. The writers know people will watch the show, no matter what they do--why bother doing any more than the minimum? None of them are talented. This is the highest-profile show with which they'll ever be involved. Just put in the two minutes, cash the check and go home.
Nothing that hasn't happened in every season. TWD managed two eps in a row at a relatively reasonable clip. That's a lot for TWD; they rarely ever even get in that many before reverting to form. What everyone should have learned by now is that the writers on this series aren't gong to do any more work than they must. If the option is properly plotting an ep vs. just coming up with a one-line "story" and packing the difference with filler, they opt for the latter almost every time.
Yes, it's something that shouldn't exist. The writers have been attempting to ape Z NATION on various points since that show appeared. ZN is a crazy syncretistic blender of influences. It has adapted lots of Mad Maxian post-apocalyptic stuff but "adapted" is really the key word there; ZN's creators made that material fit with their own universe, whereas on TWD, this was just pulled from an entirely different one.