‘Fear The Walking Dead’ Gets Mixed Reviews
Fear The Walking Dead, AMC’s new zombie show, premieres Sunday, and online reviews are starting to pop up. So, what’s the verdict? Will the show be a survivor or will it be DOA? The answer depends on who you ask.
According to Adweek, zombie fans will love Fear the Walking Dead. In a recent article, Adweek went so far as to list five reasons why the show will work with viewers.
Among Adweek’s reasons are the fact that Fear the Walking Dead is set pre-apocalypse, creating a setting that is very different from AMC’s original zombie show. In addition, Adweek notes the show takes the time to develop its characters more fully than the original series did.
In its review, Vulture takes a much more critical look at Fear the Walking Dead, going so far as to call it banal. According to the Vulture review, the new show lacks tension because fans already know much of what the characters do not. In effect, The Walking Dead is a huge spoiler for the companion show, the review states. This opinion would appear to be in the minority, however.
Others offering praise to Fear the Walking Dead include Deadline, which says the new series is “is well worth sinking your TV teeth into.”
Deadline’s review states that the new series could stand on its own and is as dramatically pleasing as the original. According to the review, where the new series “differs is the time, tone and locale. And that makes all the difference in this deteriorating world.”
Producer Dave Erickson spoke with Yahoo! News talking about the decisions that went into making Fear the Walking Dead. He said that going back in time to the onset of the apocalypse gave the writers some room to develop the characters in ways that wasn’t possible in the original series.
“I think the benefit, because it’s just the onset [of the outbreak], is that it did allow us to take the problems that this family would have had regardless of if there was a zombie around the corner, and play to that drama, which only gets exacerbated by what’s happening,” he said.
Fear the Walking Dead also gave the writers the ability to explore the collapse of society in ways the original only hinted at. While none of the lead characters in the new show will work for the Centers for Disease Control or be a part of the military, the actions of those organizations will play out.
“We will see the effort to stop the contagion, the effort to contain it. We’ll do it consistently through our family’s filter, but, yeah, absolutely. We wanted to present the outbreak in a way that felt credible,” Erickson said.
Fans will be able to decide for themselves Sunday when Fear the Walking Dead premieres on AMC.
[Photo via AMC]
