Walking Dead S3E1

[thedungeondelver]

Great season opener, I thought. Is it me, or did we lose about two or three more minutes to commercials?

The more popular shows become the worse things like that get. AMC has been eating up the ratings with Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead and of course Mad Men. They can't help but see those dollar signs and start salivating...

[TRP]

It's interesting, for all the press AMC and HBO shows receive, their ratings pale when compared to "The Networks". Where it's typical for popular shows on the networks to get about 10 million viewers and up for popular shows, check out the ratings for the amazing Mad Men:

Season : Premiere viewers(in millions)
1 : 0.90
2 : 2.00
3 : 2.80
4 : 2.92
5 : 3.54

courtesy of Wikipedia

[thedungeondelver]

It's interesting, for all the press AMC and HBO shows receive, their ratings pale when compared to "The Networks". Where it's typical for popular shows on the networks to get about 10 million viewers and up for popular shows, check out the ratings for the amazing Mad Men:

Season : Premiere viewers(in millions)
1 : 0.90
2 : 2.00
3 : 2.80
4 : 2.92
5 : 3.54

courtesy of Wikipedia

Yeah; I should have used the caveat "...for cable TV."

I mean, one of my favorite shows a few years back was the post-nuclear war drama Jericho and it got canned for "only" garnering a 1.6 share (1.6m viewers per episode) for many nights running. Now compare that to my other favorite show at the time which also aired on the same night: Rescue Me. Rescue me pulled around the same viewership, but ran on the F/X Network and consequently was considered a smash, runaway success. It ended because Leary felt the show's story arc had closed. Jericho was cancelled because it was only pulling the numbers that one of the most popular basic cable channel shows was pulling. I don't begrudge Rescue Me the five solid seasons it got but it pisses me off when something as conceptually cool as Jericho gets tossed away because it doesn't pull the same numbers as Shitty Cuntbag White People Who Should Be Put In A Concentration Camp...oops, I mean Friends.

[Chainsaw]

We watched the first couple of Walking Dead episodes last night and enjoyed them. Looking forward to more this evening. Then to Sons of Anarchy and Breaking Bad.

[Falconer]

The only dramas I’m following right now are Mad Men and Game of Thrones. Those are both must-sees in my opinion, and I don’t know of any other shows in that category. Everyone says Breaking Bad, but I am so not motivated to try it based on the premise.

[Clangador]

How on earth can this group of morons be lacking guns and ammo nine months after the zombification of the planet?

Why are they still driving this pos vehicles? Big, heavy and four wheel drive is the clear choice, but they go with small, old or crappy.

Now let us look at the new episode. They are getting frustrated with their encounters with zombies as they house hop. So the solution is to go to a location that is potentially loaded with zombies in a close-quarters environment? I can't say for sure, but I think if the world is my shopping cart, I am not going to select a prison as my store of choice.

It doesn't make as good of a story as them running around in constant peril.

[Stik]

Shortage of ammo is understandable. Untrained shooters, heck, even trained shooters, would tend to waste a lot of ammo in the heat of combat. This would go double in the immediate aftermath of the zombie outbreak, when terrified people are facing an incomprehensible enemy. A lot of ammo would have been consumed/wasted in the early days of the outbreak, before people learned that the tried-and-true method of shooting "center mass" is ineffective and head shots would only happen ocasionally. And nobody is manufacturing/shipping ammo any more. Chances are anybody scrounging for ammo would find a lot more empty shell casings around than bullets.

Rick and co. have been fighting close-up with zombies for months. If you figure each person with a firearm shoots it three times a day (a conservative estimate, given the number of walkers we've seen) and you have nine people using firearms, that's over 800 rounds per month.

As to their choice of weapons, a .50 cal machine gun is great for shooting up vehicles and aircraft and buildings, and a .50 cal rifle is fine for a special forces snipers who need to kill a single target from ridiculous distances, but it's not the ideal weapon against zed. True, it does massive damage, but massive damage is not what you need. You need accuracy and rate of fire. And the .50 cal it's big, bulky, and heavy, and the ammo is big, bulky and heavy. You're better off with something small, light and portable, like a 9mm (for which ammo might be easier to find, anyway, seeing as it is the standard for law enforcement and for US military sidearms) or even a .22 cal (you know, the kind that people use to plink at tin cans and hunt squirrels. Stopping power doesn't matter when a head shot is all that will kill a target, and a 22 will do that just fine).

As to why they aren't cruising around in big, heavy four-wheel-drive vehicles, that's an easy one. Fuel. Big, heavy four-wheel-drive vehicles are gluttons for gasoline. Singer Dee Snider, who drives a Hummer H2, said it best: "Sometimes I have to stop for gas on the way home from the gas station." In a post-zed world, youre local gas stations probably won't have any (sold out during the early days of the outbreak, just like in Lousiana before Katrina), and even if they did, there's no electricity to run the pumps, which means you'd need a portable pump to lift the gas out of the underground tanks. Most of the gasoline in the area would be in cars, assuming, of course, that the drivers hadn't run them down to E while trying to escape, and that they remembered to turn the engines off when their cars were overrun, and siphoning gas from a bunch of abandoned vehicles is a tedious process, and a dangerous one with zed in the area.

[Badmike]

As to their choice of weapons, a .50 cal machine gun is great for shooting up vehicles and aircraft and buildings, and a .50 cal rifle is fine for a special forces snipers who need to kill a single target from ridiculous distances, but it's not the ideal weapon against zed. True, it does massive damage, but massive damage is not what you need. You need accuracy and rate of fire. And the .50 cal it's big, bulky, and heavy, and the ammo is big, bulky and heavy. You're better off with something small, light and portable, like a 9mm (for which ammo might be easier to find, anyway, seeing as it is the standard for law enforcement and for US military sidearms) or even a .22 cal (you know, the kind that people use to plink at tin cans and hunt squirrels. Stopping power doesn't matter when a head shot is all that will kill a target, and a 22 will do that just fine).

.

I'll arm my six buds with large caliber full autos, you carry .22s, and we'll see who walks out of the field of walkers intact. Look, I know a headshot is optimal, but take out the legs and the things can only crawl to you by dragging themselves, making them about as fearful as a pile of fire ants. And, unlike the characters on WD who are better killshot-artists than a master sniper, most people are going to be far more effective NOT trying for a headshot. Hell, you better be within 20 feet or that .22 isn't even going to make that headshot anyway. Give me an AK-47 and I'll blow that body clean in half and worry about the headshot afterwards.

As for ammo, there are billions of rounds out there. Yes, that is correct. BILLIONS. The Social Security Administration by itself recently put in an order for 174,000 rounds of .357 bullets. That's one agency. It has been rumored the Department of Homeland Security ordered 450 MILLION rounds of ammo for all their agents. All in all, including all branches of the federal government, the feds order about 750 million rounds annually. This isn't even getting into rounds privately sold, or stockpiled by the military. No, there are enough bullets to go around for a long, long time. Not to mention even I know a few guys who can make their own ammo if they have the brass. Once again, this is the logic of Hollywood liberal types who have only seen a "real" gun on tv, and have no clue as to the exact amounts of guns and ammo floating around out there, and since neither they nor any of their buddies are gun owners or know any, they don't have a clue about gun culture. Since the walkers aren't using guns, or ammo, there is going to be a ton just laying around.

Truth in Advertising: One of my best friends growing up is a lawyer in LA and a gun owner. He runs into people everyday that have never seen, held, or shot a real gun, and would be insulted if you suggested that they had. I could share stories he's told me that are so stupid you would just think I made them up. I have no illusions that WD is written by people such as these. I refuse to believe that any problems with guns or ammo would happen in a world where the enemy is not "shooting back" at the protagonists.

The point about gas is significant, but in that case, why didn't they raid the local Prius dealership to really get bang for the buck?

Mike B.

[rogatny]

I finally got caught up with the show this morning.

The Ricktatorship seems to be working out well.

I'm sorry, Lori, it doesn't matter what Rick says. You ARE in fact the world's worst mother. What's that? Yeah, that's Carl wandering off again while Rick is risking his life to try to keep you safe. Eyes on the prize, dearie.

And can you please stop with the let's talk about us crap!!! If you haven't noticed, the world seems to have fallen apart. Does that petty shit really matter any more?

[robertsconley]

The only dramas I’m following right now are Mad Men and Game of Thrones. Those are both must-sees in my opinion, and I don’t know of any other shows in that category. Everyone says Breaking Bad, but I am so not motivated to try it based on the premise.

I thought the same way as you but then I watched it. It one of those shows that watches a lot better than reading the description and episode synopsis makes it out to be.

I watched Mad Men too and I recall a couple of episodes that dragged. Breaking Bad hasn't had any of those yet even in its latest season.

[Chainsaw]

Homeland's pretty good, though Claire Danes' constantly wild-eyed facial expressions are getting kind of annoying. I avoided watching it for a while because I didn't like the premise, but eventually broke down one night and watched the entire first season when I was up with the baby.

[Welleran]

Homeland's pretty good, though Claire Danes' constantly wild-eyed facial expressions are getting kind of annoying.

That character is an excellent example of why people with mental problems are not allowed to have security clearances in real life! Still, it is entertaining, even if a bit far-fetched...

[Chainsaw]

Homeland's pretty good, though Claire Danes' constantly wild-eyed facial expressions are getting kind of annoying.

That character is an excellent example of why people with mental problems are not allowed to have security clearances in real life! Still, it is entertaining, even if a bit far-fetched...

They are walking a fine line with that character, but doing an OK job, I think.

In the first season, didn't they basically let her go as soon as they found out she was manic depressive or whatever? In season two, she hasn't been rehired so far as I can tell (or even paid anything), but is sort of acting in the same capacity as a civilian the CIA might exploit for information or service - an informant or field contact or whatever. Not to mention everything they're doing now is "off the books."

[Welleran]

They are walking a fine line with that character, but doing an OK job, I think.

I agree completely! I really love the show, though I have not watched the new season yet.

[Badmike]

Never got Mad Men. I've watched a show here and there, but it just seems like a high-premise soap with great clothing. It's never grabbed me. What am I missing?

Mike B.