I have a love / hate relationship with The Walking Dead universe - mostly hate when it comes to the spinoffs though. Fear is easily one of the worst scripted television shows of all time (especially everything after season 4). World Beyond had some interesting ideas but didn't deliver on any of them, and many of the characters were absolutely insufferable. Tales was both good and bad, a nice break from the standard Walking Dead formula that wasn't afraid to play around with bold new ideas - some of those ideas were great while some were downright awful. And Dead City had it's moments, though ultimately I ended up not liking it that much.
Given all that, I expected the eponymous Daryl Dixon spinoff to be garbage - especially since Daryl is somewhat of a boring character on his own (sorry Daryl fans, but it's true). So far though, this is off to a much better start than I expected.
The premiere episode did a whole lot of work setting up this new environment and the characters within it, and it did most of it very well. There's some intrigue baked into this right from the start, with questions about how Daryl ended up all the way in France and how he's going to manage to get home (or even *if* he'll manage it). On top of that, the first episode does a good job laying down a clear outline of where this season intends to take us - giving clear goals and motivations for all of the characters. Daryl has fallen in with a couple of nuns who have tasked him with escorting a young man up to the north of France. Meanwhile he's being hunted by an angry Frenchman out for revenge for Daryl killing his brother, as well as a mysterious group of people who apparently have something to do with Daryl finding himself in France - and, interestingly, appear to be performing some kind of experiments with walkers.
The only criticisms I have are minor thus far. First of all, the initial fight Daryl gets into with the walkers seemed quite contrived. There's no way Daryl would have been so sloppy and stupid as he was in that fight. I understand they're eager to introduce these new walkers and they need to wound Daryl so he'll end up at the convent at some point to be healed - but still, it just wasn't believable for his character to have been so incredibly sloppy in that encounter. Secondly, I am somewhat concerned about the direction they're clearly going with this... a gruff older man begrudgingly accepts a task to escort a teenager on a cross country journey with the promise that this teenager is "special" and will "save the world" - this all sounds very much like the plot of The Last of Us - and while I can admit this was a good premiere episode, it doesn't even hold a candle to The Last of Us (and it also marks at *least* the second time a Walking Dead spinoff has directly ripped off details from The Last of Us - the first being the Rat King in Dead City).
Anyway, if nothing else, I am at least intrigued to see where this goes. I really hope it doesn't fall victim to the awful writing that destroyed Fear though.
Given all that, I expected the eponymous Daryl Dixon spinoff to be garbage - especially since Daryl is somewhat of a boring character on his own (sorry Daryl fans, but it's true). So far though, this is off to a much better start than I expected.
The premiere episode did a whole lot of work setting up this new environment and the characters within it, and it did most of it very well. There's some intrigue baked into this right from the start, with questions about how Daryl ended up all the way in France and how he's going to manage to get home (or even *if* he'll manage it). On top of that, the first episode does a good job laying down a clear outline of where this season intends to take us - giving clear goals and motivations for all of the characters. Daryl has fallen in with a couple of nuns who have tasked him with escorting a young man up to the north of France. Meanwhile he's being hunted by an angry Frenchman out for revenge for Daryl killing his brother, as well as a mysterious group of people who apparently have something to do with Daryl finding himself in France - and, interestingly, appear to be performing some kind of experiments with walkers.
The only criticisms I have are minor thus far. First of all, the initial fight Daryl gets into with the walkers seemed quite contrived. There's no way Daryl would have been so sloppy and stupid as he was in that fight. I understand they're eager to introduce these new walkers and they need to wound Daryl so he'll end up at the convent at some point to be healed - but still, it just wasn't believable for his character to have been so incredibly sloppy in that encounter. Secondly, I am somewhat concerned about the direction they're clearly going with this... a gruff older man begrudgingly accepts a task to escort a teenager on a cross country journey with the promise that this teenager is "special" and will "save the world" - this all sounds very much like the plot of The Last of Us - and while I can admit this was a good premiere episode, it doesn't even hold a candle to The Last of Us (and it also marks at *least* the second time a Walking Dead spinoff has directly ripped off details from The Last of Us - the first being the Rat King in Dead City).
Anyway, if nothing else, I am at least intrigued to see where this goes. I really hope it doesn't fall victim to the awful writing that destroyed Fear though.