Fear the Walking Dead should be the answer to anyone frustrated with The Walking Dead. Better characters, better story, given the choice I will always choose this series between the two.
“In Season 4 of “Fear the Walking Dead,” we will see the world of Madison Clark (Kim Dickens) and her family through new eyes – the eyes of Morgan Jones (Lennie James), who is joining the story from the world of “The Walking Dead.” The characters’ immediate past mix with an uncertain present of struggle and discovery as they meet new friends, foes, and threats. They fight for each other, against each other, and against a legion of the dead, and work to build an existence strong enough to resist the crushing pressure of lives coming apart. There will be darkness and light; terror and grace; and the heroic, together toward a new reality for “Fear the Walking Dead.”
Fear the Walking Dead has come a long way from when it started as a spinoff series that took place just as the apocalypse was happening. On the other side of the country, far away from the characters in Atlanta, this show has gained tremendous ground in distance the characters have traveled, and story progression. Season 4 introduces some great new characters to the mix, including fan favorite Morgan Jones, along with some very unique core characters including Althea (Maggie Grace) and John Dorie (Garret Dillahunt). The series now has caught up with The Walking Dead in terms of timeline, leaving things open to other series cross-overs if anyone from TWD wants to jump ship.
I’m going to be the first one criticizing The Walking Dead and the direction it’s taken. It’s very bad, to the point I couldn’t even finish the last season as hard as I tried. The format does the bare minimum to keep audiences interested, only looking for a single hook to get you invested in an entire season, dancing around main conflict for half a season, and then finally shows you something for about fifteen minutes before the mid-season ends and it does it all over again. One of the biggest ways of doing that so the showrunners can trick you into thinking you aren’t missing out is packing the show full of flashbacks. Are you wondering why the Fear the Walking Dead timeline caught up with The Walking Dead? It’s because a single season shows about two days worth of story and the rest is either a variation of those two days or some kind of narrative ploy to fill story. Okay, I’m about done with my rant on how I’ve grown to despise the original show, but the good news is Fear the Walking Dead should be where fans should naturally go if they want an actual good story that ignores expectations and the Chris Hardwick’s of the world who want to idolize a show that’s got nowhere left to go and needs to die a quick death for everyone’s sake.
The thing I loved about the previous season is the straightforward nature they took to the show and to the characters. We weren’t burdened with too many characters to count, all needing their five minutes of screen time to say something meaningful. The story progressed organically, characters were faced with unique situations, sometimes even mundane, but that was the refreshing part. In this season, there is an episode about the difficulty in crossing a flooded street. You may scoff at such a trivial plot, but in this show it’s the simplisities that define the characters, not one larger than life bad guy to drive everyone’s motivation.
What’s interesting about this season is the dynamic between who’s left of the original cast and the newcomers. The old cast are treated as antagonists in some episodes, making you wonder in what direction they have planned for the new characters and the series as a whole. It’s a fresh concept to make the heroes the villains, and although we all know it’s not going to last, seeing these people in a different light only furthers to round on each one of them with layered storytelling you simply won’t get in TWD. Also, my favorite part of the series involves a hurricane hitting Texas, giving us some of the coolest sequences I’ve seen in either series.
As much as I protest against the use of flashbacks to drive a story, toward the middle of the first half of this season they are utilized pretty heavily, as if the showrunners figured emulating TWD would benefit them in some way. It’s painfully hard to watch, as some characters die in the present, yet are still a major part of the story told in flashbacks. Not only does this make their death less impactful and virtually meaningless, it’s a lazy method of storytelling that’s been entirely overused, especially if flashbacks are 90% of the story, with 10% being real time. Thankfully, someone must have taken heed of critical outcries as the direction of the second half seems like a different show, free to explore the characters and their unique situation without that burden. One other thing I thought was pretty weak in this season were the antagonists. I’m not asking for another Negan, nor do I want one, but the antagonists in this season felt entirely way too forced and unrealistic.
Video
Fear the Walking Dead is presented in 1080p High Definition Widescreen 1.78:1. Each episode looks very clear and detailed, with different tones representing different time periods when the story is split. A yellowish hue represents the past, more life-like and I guess closer to the way the world use to be. The present in represented by a more drab, greyish hue, almost like despair and lack of hope have overtaken the world. Makeup and special effects are particularly great, as the undead deaths take some new and cool directions.
Audio
Audio is presented in Dolby TrueHD 5.1. The track sounds great, with most of the sound coming in the form of dialogue through the center channel, but the surrounds saved for some of the cooler effects like the wailing of the dead.
Special Features
The extras contain Audio Commentary on select episodes on the set. Not the greatest of supplemental materials, but interesting to listen to, especially if you enjoyed the particular episode.
Fear the Walking Dead in my opinion has far surpassed that of The Walking Dead for some time now. Although there are some slips back into bad storytelling that plague the latter, this show is full of characters that I grew to care about and want to see more of. Season 4 is a big step in a new direction that could signify the dominance of the two shows.
