FEAR THE WALKING DEAD : PILOT

Set in Los Angeles leading up to the events we are aware of in The Walking Dead, this series begins by giving us a basic introduction of what is an as yet unidentified virus or condition, possibly a flu virus mutation which is killing people and reanimating them as vicious flesh hungry zombies.

It gets the point across beautifully in the 1st few minutes as to what is in store, there is not really a lot to say regarding characterisation, or indeed plot as everything is somewhat basic at this point, and if we have learned one thing from The Walking Dead it is that things in this new series will turn out to be what we would expect from the same makers of the already established show. The point Fear The Walking Dead gets across quite early on is that there is no real hope, as the events we already know occur in The Walking Dead are inevitable no matter what the cast of this prequel series do.

The idea for this show is particularly interesting as it is somewhat akin to 'Titanic' in that we already know what happens, we just have a desire to see how it gets there. There is plenty of scope for many a crossover as there may well be survivors from this series showing up in the next series of The Walking Dead and there are already hints that one or more actors from The Walking Dead could appear in Fear The Walking Dead so we may see something of their earlier pre-apocalyptic lives.

What will actually happen is obviously subject to hell of a lot of speculation and interpretation, time will tell.

The cast of characters thus far are fairly stereotypical. There is a teacher, Maddie (Kim Dickens) who is a mother with a studious yet ignorant daughter Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) and drug addict son Nick (Frank Dillane). The teacher's boyfriend Travis (Cliff Curtis) is despised by the daughter. The waster/addict son Nick is the main focus of the pilot episode, he is the 1st to encounter a zombie in this series and after being considered mentally unstable through drugs generates a situation in which his mother and her boyfriend discover that not everything is how it seems and what he saw was actually real.

One of the students of the school, Tobias (Lincoln A. Castellanos), has a very strong idea that the imminent downfall of society is linked to the virus yet his protestations go unheard. There are small interwoven plotlines, none of which have enough flesh on the bones to be all that relevant and further mention of where they might lead is not really possible without giving spoilers, not as though we do not already know the basics of where everything is leading.

All I can really say is that the initial pilot episode is good, there is obviously a decent budget and the cast are all competent actors who appear comfortable in their roles, the plot is leading without dragging and has left me with the desire to see the 2nd episode when it airs.

JOE YOUNG