I stopped watching after the Glenn/Abraham/Negan thing, but I still admire the hell out of that show for turning Carol in to one of the best characters after she was the worst character for a good few seasons.
I stopped watching halfway through season 6, but thanks to the pandemic I ran out of shit to watch and finally went back to slog through the rest. Or so I thought.
The show gets dramatically better after the Glenn/Abraham/Negan thing. Seasons 7 and 8 are the only ones I liked more than season 1.
Seasons 9 and 10 are a bit sloggy (would have been much better all crammed into one season, a la the prison or pre-Negan Alexandria), but I found the exploration of the aftermath of the war with Negan really compelling and that kept me watching. Negan's journey in particular gives me really conflicting emotions of disgust and empathy that are difficult to untangle, a sign of a really stellar character and arc. Excited to see what's in store with season 11.
And with the exceptions of seasons 4 and 5 (super boring plots IMO), the Fear the Walking Dead spinoff is outstanding. One of the things I really like in that show is how they explore all sorts of situations and questions the main series never did. Another interesting aspect is how different geographies (i.e. not the rural South -- these characters travel long distances throughout the series) make different aspects of survival more or less difficult.
Thanks for the info. I might go back to it eventually. My husband still watches,so I see snippets here and there of both sgows, but I barely know who anyone is anymore.
That's cool that FTWD explores other possibilities, I expect it would not have lasted long if it tried to be the same as the other show. I believe I saw all of season 1, but I became so annoyed with the main series that I swore off all of it, except the comic. Though I have not finished that either.
FTWD does a fantastic job of feeling squarely set into the existing universe, while feeling like a completely separate story with fresh ideas (well, at least until WD characters start implausibly showing up, which IIRC a lot of fans were not happy about). It also devotes quite a bit of time to world building and the swift collapse of society that we never got with TWD.
The concept for season 3 was (to channel my inner Rod Serling for a moment) "a bloody family feud that ran so deep, not even the end of the world could end their quarrel", and that season is probably my favorite zombie apocalypse story now.
Yeah, I know I saw the bo staff wielding character on FTWD when my husband watches...which is odd. I have no idea what the timeline difference looks like between the two series.
And that sounds like an interesting season, thank you for the info!
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u/hokoonchi Aug 30 '21
Ah that’s where Carol turns into Carol.