Kim Dickens
Cliff Curtis
Frank Dillane
Alycia Debnam-Carey
Elizabeth Rodriguez
Mercedes Mason
Rubén Blades

Created by:
Dave Erickson
Robert Kirkman

2015-
Drama, Horror
AMC
TV-14

You awaken to find yourself in an abandoned church. Your companion is nowhere to be found. You call for her. No answer. You get up to look for her, and you stumble through the detritus strewn throughout the church. Shafts of light shine through the church’s windows, illuminating the graffiti on the walls as you pass them by. At long last, you find her. Her back is to you, and she’s bent over a body. You call her name, and she rises to face you. When she turns around, you realize … she’s a zombie!

“Fear the Walking Dead,” a prequel of sorts to “The Walking Dead,” opens with that kind of scene. And the way that scene ends is no shock (we expect this kind of thing from a horror series), but it still works. The crescendo of music, the thumping sound of a heartbeat, and the slow-motion images are as effective here as they’ve always been.

Nick Clark, played by a Johnny-Depp-like Frank Dillane, is the character at the center of that opening scene in the abandoned church. He’s a drug addict. (He calls doing drugs in the church “junkie communion.”) He’s also part of a newly blended family, including his mother (Kim Dickens), his sister (Alycia Debnam-Carey), and his mother’s high-school-teacher boyfriend (Cliff Curtis). They have varying degrees of concern for him.

By using a questionable character as a witness to a zombie attack, “Fear the Walking Dead” puts its audience in an uncomfortable position. You see, we know the deal; we’ve seen “The Walking Dead,” after all. But no one’s going to believe the seeming hallucinations of a strung-out drug addict. Heck, even he believes that either the drugs or his own insanity is to blame. These people have no idea of what they’re getting into; only we do. “Don’t go in there, dummy,” we think. That creates the tension.

However, Nick isn’t the only one who suspects that something’s up. His mother, Madison Clark, a high school guidance counselor, confiscates a knife from one of her students. He’s not the kind of student to bring weapons to school. After he attempts to explain to her that something strange is going on in the country, she dismisses his ideas. He begrudgingly replies, “Yeah. Sure. You’re right, Miss C.” Don’t worry, by the end of the first episode, she’ll realize just how wrong she is.

Stylistically, “Fear the Walking Dead” is an appropriate successor to “The Walking Dead.” But this time, we’re in LA, not in Atlanta. The pace of this show is moderately slow. It’s just right. The acting’s solid, too: Dickens and Curtis are wisely cast as central characters. But “Fear the Walking Dead” isn’t as potent as its predecessor. Well, not at this point. That doesn’t bother me, though. It’s appropriate for this part of the story. (Plus, in the past, “The Walking Dead” hasn’t always been the most compelling of shows, anyway.)

As for the writing, it gets the job done. In the first episode, many of the relationships are setup. Just as in “The Walking Dead,” that setup is sluggish at times. However, that’s no biggie here. Actually, it’s a net positive … so far. We’ll see how the characters develop in subsequent episodes. One thing’s for sure, though: These characters don’t shy away from curse words (fine by me). Similarly, the writing doesn’t shy away from crafting a few jolts, which are necessary for any credible entry into the horror genre.

During the first episode of “Fear the Walking Dead,” I enjoyed watching the beginning moments of the zombie apocalypse that was introduced to us in “The Walking Dead.” These zombies are fresh; the decay hasn’t set in. Yet, all the while, Rick Grimes is in a coma, lying in an Atlanta hospital bed. We know what happens when he wakes up, but he won’t do so for quite some time.

Verdict: Good

About: (Source: feardead)