“Fear the Walking Dead,” AMC’s TV spinoff of their popular show, “The Walking Dead,” came onto the air with a bang, hitting record breaking views for a cable series premiere at a whopping 10.1 million views. The series, based in the universe created by comic book writer Robert Kirkman, follows a new cast of characters surviving the initial zombie outbreak in Los Angeles. “Fear the Walking Dead” is AMC’s second spinoff after “Better Call Saul,” the network’s spinoff of “Breaking Bad” which aired back in February of this year.
“Fear the Walking Dead” is a new take on the Walking Dead universe with new characters, a new setting and a time period never before seen in “The Walking Dead.” The show features the beginning of the zombie outbreak where no one really knows what is going on.
The story has so far focused mainly on a small family of four and out of this small cast, the standouts are the characters Madison, played by Kim Dickens who is best known for her role as the lead detective in the movie “Gone Girl,” and her son Nick, played by Frank Dillane. These two characters are portrayed effectively in the series’ first two episodes.
Kim Dickens’ performance as a no-nonsense guidance counselor and strong-willed mother makes her a joy to watch, and the character of her son Nick has an even more interesting role to play.
The pilot of “Fear the Walking Dead” has an interesting challenge in that it has to portray the zombie outbreak as it is happening, and an event as huge as the end of the world does not happen quickly. The show is a bit of a slow burn compared to its predecessor, which featured a giant horde of zombies in its pilot as opposed to Fear’s measly two in its first episode. The pilot is filled with many hints toward the impending zombie menace for the audience while they watch the characters slowly piece together what is happening.
Some of these hints are quite clever, such as showing how less and less kids are showing up at the school where the main characters work and/or attend due to a “flu.” Others are a little cheesy, such as a student raving about government cover-ups and sounding like a two-bit conspiracy theorist. The show does this best when it frames its opening scene with the character of Nick Clark.
Nick Clark is a heroin addict, giving his character a lack of credibility. In the show’s opening scene, Nick awakes from a drug trip to witness one of his friends turned into a zombie and eating her fellow junkies. The scene is extremely well paced and tense, in some ways mirroring “The Walking Dead” opening scene in which its main character Rick Grimes wakes up dazed in a hospital.
Nick’s character is very reminiscent of the character of Charlie in the ABC hit series “Lost,” a character who was also suffering from heroin addiction. The idea of using a heroin addict as a character who can’t tell what is real and what is fake worked well on a supernatural island full of mysteries, and it works here as well, with Nick’s character spending the entire pilot attempting to find out if what he saw was real or just a really bad trip. Dillane nails the character, allowing for viewers to hate Nick for the problems he causes his family yet feel some sympathy for him as he struggles with the horrors around him and the horrors of heroin. The idea works tremendously well for the pilot and allows for the characters to discover that, spoiler alert, the dead are in fact walking.
As was mentioned earlier though, “Fear the Walking Dead” is a bit slower than its predecessor. The show seems keen on focusing on the intriguing angle of viewing the start of the apocalypse, unlike in “Walking Dead” where the apocalypse is already in full swing by the time the show starts. This has both good and bad consequences. On the one hand, starting the show off without many zombies allows for the audience to really get to know the characters without them constantly getting interrupted by zombie attacks. The audience learns who they are, how they are related and how they act in their day to day lives before those lives are changed forever. These characters feel like much more of a family as a result.
All and all, Fear the Walking Dead, despite a bit of a slow start, seems to have a lot to offer for Walking Dead fans and fans of TV in general. With more of a focus on its characters, some stellar performances, some unique ideas and a new, more populated urban environment in L.A., “Fear the Walking Dead” seems to have enough differences to set it apart from its big brother show while still maintaining the same level of tension as its predecessor.
