‘Fear The Walking Dead’ Season 8, Episode 1 Review: Here We Go Again!

Note: This is a no-spoiler review (not a recap) of the Season 8 premiere of FEAR THE WALKING DEAD on AMC.

Fear The Walking Dead is back for one final season and I’m here to let you know whether or not it’s worth watching—or maybe at least worth hate-watching. The Season 8 premiere lands on AMC+ Thursday and on AMC the television network this Sunday. It’s a fragmented world of TV-watching these days, that’s for sure.

It’s tricky because I have screeners again (for the first time since Season 4, after which I was blacklisted) but that means my embargo is Sunday after the episode airs. If I was just using AMC+ instead of screeners, I could post reviews earlier, each Thursday when they stream online.

I’ve settled on a balance instead. I’ll post a non-spoiler review of the episode earlier in the week, then update with recap/spoilery additions on Sunday when embargo lifts or just post a separate recap post that day. That way I can still offer up some thoughts on the episodes as they release on AMC+ but wait to drop any spoilers until Sunday (though obviously there will be tons of spoilers readily available since tons of viewers will be watching on Thursday—like I said, fragmented, weird time to be a TV viewer or critic).

So here’s my first go at double-posting, with the first part of this review spoiler-free, and then an update Sunday with spoilers. Consider this an experiment. I may or may not continue with this format throughout the rest of Season 8. This will also inform how I cover Dead City when that airs this coming June.

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Season 8 Premiere Review: Remember What They Took From You

Again, no spoilers in this section other than basic premise stuff that we already know based on trailers and what the show’s creators have discussed publicly such as the big time-jump between now and Season 7 and the fact that we’ve sailed from Texas to (I think) Louisiana. Deep South.

Okay, let’s dive in . . . .

The Season 8 premiere is okay. It’s fine. It’s a big step up from Season 7, but that’s such a low bar that I’m not sure it says much. There’s nothing egregiously bad here, but also nothing to really convince me that the showrunners and writers have learned any important lessons from their previous mistakes.

I’ll start with things I liked:

• The new setting is a big improvement. Swampland! The color green! Water! Swamp zombies! It’s a refreshing change from the boring flatlands of Texas. Doubly so after the nuclear wasteland crap from Season 7. No nuclear fallout here in Louisiana, thank goodness.
• I like the kid who plays Mo. I’ll qualify that with a caveat: It’s really, painfully obvious that she’s actually 12 (Zoey Merchant, the actress, that is) and not 8 like the character is supposed to be after the big time-jump. This bugs me. It’s small potatoes in the big scheme of things, but it’s another example of the showrunners treating the audience like we’re stupid.
• Some of the cinematography is really nice. Shots of the swamps at night are pretty cool. Same with the special effects. The zombies look great and there are lots of them.

Stuff I didn’t like:

• Walkie-talkies to the rescue. You know what it is.
• Stilted dialogue. Just your typical Fear dialogue that never really feels like how normal people actually talk. Nobody has real conversations. It’s all over-the-top, melodramatic gobbledygook. It’s as if this show was written by aliens using AI to simulate what humans are supposed to sound like. I can’t imagine being an actor and having to say this crap. It’s not any one line in particular, nothing uniquely egregious, just the overall way people talk. I’ll have to go into more specific detail later, because nobody feels like a human being and it’s so bizarre!
• PADRE. This is just another totally implausible group of survivors to play antagonist to our heroes. This show has the same problem The Walking Dead had, which is an overreliance on groups of enemies that are Very Bad and Must Be Stopped. It’s boring at this point. Season 3 was great because the group in question wasn’t just bad. It felt realistic and human. The survivalists and the Otto family were flawed, imperfect, but felt like the kind of group you might actually find in a zombie apocalypse. Their feud with the Native American tribe (which had its own flawed characters) was realistic and plausible.
• I’m so, so tired of all these characters. Morgan is so tiresome it’s almost painful. Madison is a drag. More than that, she’s a gimmick. What’s the point of bringing her back now that her whole family is dead? The answer: To bring back wayward viewers. Stalwart Madison fans. That’s it. I didn’t much like Madison before this, and I don’t care for her now when her character is not only pointless but far less interesting. In future episodes we’ll get Dwight and Sherry (the worst, most toxic TV couple in The Walking Dead universe) and that shell of a man who inhabits the body of Daniel. And, of course, Strand in whatever new form they give him. No longer the tinpot dictator. What personality will they layer over him this time? I am excited about literally none of them. The expiration date on all their stories was many years ago and now they’ve all gone rotten.

There’s some good action, some tension, some fun scenes in the Season 8 premiere but it’s just very, very difficult to care about any of it. The fact is, this is still New Fear, and that’s always been less compelling than Old Fear. Season 3 Fear. The vibe is just . . . so different. Everything feels artificial and contrived. Which is too bad. We’ll see if things can pick up as the season progresses, but my hopes are down there in the swamp with the dead, drowning in the muck.

What did you think of the Season 8 premiere? Let me know on Twitter or Facebook.

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