Tonight's episode of The Walking Dead cast a pretty wide net and covered a number of different characters, locations and subplots. One of the criticisms levelled at The Walking Dead in the past (oh and there have been many) is that some episodes have been too self-contained and insular. You know the ones I mean, where we spend the entire episode in the company of one or two characters and by the end of it, the storyline doesn't really seemed to have progressed very much. Episode six was the antithesis of this, yet I fear that there will still be some who aren't happy. What do people want! An episode that covered so much ground could have ended up feeling too thin and disparate but on the who
Over the past two seasons, TWD has received much (some of it very legitimate) criticism – from fans and critics alike. I would say my issues with the Walking Dead can be underpinned by the following three points: the sometimes cartoon-ish portrayal of Negan, the excessive naval-gazing of the writers for episodes on end (hand-in-hand with the pretentious direction and bottle episodes that focus on only two characters at a time), and a general lack of momentum. Some viewers criticise the series for too little action for a zombie show and others criticise it for not being “smart” enough. While these things are not mutually exclusive, and the last season was by far the most infuriating period fo
If I had been told that this week’s episode would be a bottle episode, focusing almost solely on King Ezekiel and his story, I would have expected a rather dire hour of television. I would have argued that concentrating on one of the show’s most irritating characters was maddening in a really “The Walking Dead” sort of a way; nothing but a sign that the writers really do not understand the audience and the elements we enjoy the most about this show. So it is with much surprise that I say that this week’s offering was by far the strongest episode of this season. It did not exactly break new ground but it was tense, engrossing and, most importantly, I knew exactly what these characters were tr
We suffered from some of the same problems as last week but ultimately, we were rewarded with a much more enjoyable episode. We revisited the confusion over what exactly was unfolding with King Ezekiel, Carol and their group. Are they actually moving toward their end goal with any momentum? Ezekiel has been rather grating so far in this series– the exaggerated pleasure he takes in battle is quite exhausting to watch, even if Carol does seem to be softening toward him. He seems naively determined that he won’t lose any men and this highlights how experienced he is in this kind of battle. By the end of that episode, I was not only convinced most of his group would die, I was almost looking for
10 Times Celebrities became the Walking Dead (but not on that TV show). Zombie plagues and apocalypses won’t differentiate between the rich and poor. Nor will they hold up a hand and refuse to infect any human who’s identified as being a “celebrity”. So it’s only right that some A-Listers and accomplished actors have portrayed the Living Dead over the last few years. We’re not talking vampires like whiny Brad Pitt in “Interview with the Vampire”, or the sparkly Robert Pattinson in the “Twilight” films. Nor are we talking about the surprise ghosts in films like “The 6th Sense” or “The Others”. No, we’re talking about the bona-fide pain-free somehow-walking shuffled-off-this-mortal-coil-at-lea
(SPOILERS: Get Out – of course!) This week I continue my analysis of writing techniques in the horror movie Get Out (written by Jordan Peele) by looking at the use of planting and payoff. Planting and payoff is a powerful tool for screenwriters that can serve many purposes. First, it helps make story points believable. In the third act of Get Out, we discover that the character of Dean is doing surgery to transplant brains from one body to another. We believe he is capable of that because in act one it was established that he is a neurosurgeon. If we got to act three and someone said, “Oh, by the way, Dean’s a neurosurgeon,” it might seem arbitrary and convenient, a cheat by the writer
