It's enough to establish that there's some menace there. It's been implied so much that we either stop or we must finally see what it is because what we're seeing isn't development, it's just exposition again. Judging by the pacing, we'll likely see this story develop into next season. Also, The Governor has been extremely mellow so far, no?
It hasnt really been a slow pace, it is only three episodes into the Woodbury storyline and it looks like the fourth episode is going to lead to an introduction between the groups. That is about on par with the comics or maybe even faster. Once the groups meet, it only escalates from there. The governor in the comics was a bit too over the top. He was a caricature of a bad guy yet people in the community allowed him to lead them. I like this version of the governor much better, it is far more realistic.
I like this Governor too. While it is obvious his authority is absolute, he really seems to respect the opinions of the people below him. More than that, he values them.
I wasn't talking about the pace of the story as much as much as the pace of its exposition. Obviously the writers had to make him 'less cartoony' but we have spent quite a bit of time with him now and there's no sense of character there. There's nothing menacing unless that's the point of the show. We know he keeps heads and zombies, etc and shoots army guys but beyond just being another post-apocalyptic zombie bad guy he doesn't strike me as a major villain at all.
It's the best season so far, imo. They've killed off the love-triangle, literally, and they've cut down on the meaningless dialogue, replacing it with more blood, guts and brains.
I am and I agree but by a very small margin. I think as soon as the action stopped and they returned to the interpersonal drama, the worst came out again.
Has there been a ton of interpersonal drama? Maybe last episode it bogged down a little, but I still think it's a lot more interesting than watching them send Glenn down a well to try to hoist a fat zombie out. And the governor is a whole lot more interesting than the annoying love triangle last season. The farm mostly sucked. The writers and cast may not be brilliant - but they - I assume - are trying to balance the show with not totally alienating comic book readers if they haven't already. They are also doing a much better job of balancing intense gore/action with boring buildup this season. And at least it's not like it's Lost or Twin Peaks where it was clear the writers created this big mystery with no real plan in place to resolve it.
I was quite interested in what Demo wrote in the last thread about the Soap Opera story arc. I just finished season 2 of Downtown Abbey and it uses the same frustrating approach with 'drama' that is strung out for extended periods with no resolution or progress - and loads of talking about stuff - which allows the same conversations to happen about 6 different ways. This is of course SOP for classic dailies like Neighbours where stuff drags on for days in a row So i wonder if rather than inept writing - it was actually planned to be like that. After all the ratings seemed to be the opposite of what all the critics said - i.e. EPIC.
I think maybe we need to return to that format of storytelling in tv. Everything seems so rigid and formulaic/by the numbers nowadays. The loose formats allowed creative teams to organically create something. I understand production and ratings restrictions don't allow it but that would probably help so much of the awful stuff on tv. The Walking Dead's premise is so simple, there's no great mystery the writers need to be bogged down to resolve, so logically they have more free reign to explore the nature of the story but I don't think they have done so in a way where the structure feels fresh and exciting, excluding the action scenes which are always welcome to balance a show that's essentially about people. A prime example of how the writers tackle characters is the Governor. So in the comics he was a straight out maniac. For tv, of course it's good that the writers didn't adhere to that and pull back a little, make him more human, etc. I get it. BUT the problem lies in the extreme predictability of the character. The overlying structure/narrative revealed him to the villain, not necessarily his actions. We know so well already who the good guys/bad guys are that we don't need story-telling to develop the characters any longer. That's a big problem. So while we have slowly seen The Governor do bad things and talk about possibly doing bad things, the main problem remains that he's built up to reveal the real menacing secret to him and that final exposition is looming over his character and defining him for us. It will instantaneously feel like a let down no matter how shocking it is in nature. Everything ultimately feels very rigid in terms of how flexible the characters can be in their personal arcs. Even Rick's because despite all the exposition, it's all very linear - we are told a lot but the same thing repeatedly.
Not sure it was planned that way. First and foremost this is the standard writing procedure for most of Hollywood. It's obviously a successful method because it's been used so often and there is an audience for it. Also this is a show whose primary fanbase were comic book fans but had been re-modeled to appeal to a broader audience.
This is the weakness and the strength of the Soap approach - done well - it rates highly despite it being weak sauce - because it strings you along. To my mind this show was more like Melrose place with Zombies - and as you say - nothing Amanda ever did was shocking because it's telegraphed 100 miles away. The more difficult format has proper weekly stories - think Hill Street Blues - and that's what I was really expecting - genuine questing in an apocalyptic landscape - or at least survivalism. I raised Downton - because the original Upstairs Downstairs had genuine episodes and genuine character development. In downtown they do exactly what they do here - which is pack it with cheap filler.
Yeah - I agree that it feels pretty hackneyed and really predictable. Isn't that partly the fault of the source material - it is based on a comic after all? I just would argue that while I agree it's not great writing - it doesn't make the show terrible.
I think they define greatness of writing by what rates. Which is this kind of stuff. But it doesn't have to be like this in a weekly when you allow events to steer the narrative rather than spending so much time with no wind in your sails.
The show is too different from the comics to really blame any of its flaws on the source material. At this point, they are just vaguely following some aspects of the plot line and completely changing others. But it's mostly the atmosphere that is a lot different. The graphic novel is far more dark.
To be fair, the comic wasn't the most sophisticated of its format, at all. The series got weaker and weaker by the book. I stopped reading it altogether. But the show should continue to try and deviate as much as possible.
It's actually taken a lot of steps so far this season to draw itself closer to the comics. When you think about it, there isnt that much different at this point in time compared to the comics. The biggest differences are the addition of Daryl, Dale dying early, no Tyresse, and the lack of prisoner serial killer. The governor storyline is playing out a little different but not that much. We pretty much have our core group of survivors right now with the addition of Daryl.