Be Excellent To Each Other

You need to leave it a while as the download speed will generally increase during the first few minutes.

1) get Sky installed
2) tune to FX HD on Friday nights
3) there is no step 3)

You fucking scrubber.

Hahahahhahahah.

No.

We had cable for a while in London, and it's proper fucking waste of money as there's generally only one show on over the entire sixty gajillion channels that we ever want to watch.

1) wait six months
2) buy Walking Dead DVD box set
3) there is no step 3

Ha. I thought all the cool kids watched evaluation copies first, though?

Anyway, carry on.

You might also need specific codecs, which allow the computer to understand the video format.
If it (or anything else you download in the future by searching http://www.thepiratebay.org ) doesn't play, or you just get the sound, download this: http://www.free-codecs.com/download/k_l ... c_pack.htm
That's not the "best" way to do things, but it's by far the simplest.

Obviously not, Gaywood and I watch it on Sky. Not together or anything.

Wasn't it just.
Best one by quite a way I think, and the last ten minutes really had me on the edge of the seat.

Or just download and watch now, and do the morally decent thing and buy the DVD boxset when it's released.

I'm not paying for Sky, partly because it's 99% utter shite, partly because I'm not giving any money to Fucking Murdoch, and partly (and related) because he's responsible for Fox Fucking 'News'.

I do however love the series, so will order the DVD boxset as soon as it's available.

EDIT - We paid for Sky for years, for ages back in the analogue days and then the first 3/4 years of digital (may even have been a bit longer than that), but as time went by I found his media empire to be increasingly morally repugnant, and perhaps more significantly, the quality of the programming to fall below the standards that a lobotomised fucking chimpanzee might reasonably expect. So we fucked them off and have never donated a penny to his Empire Of Ruthless Shit ever since.

We're not debating ethics, we're debating Kissyfur's evident inability to drive bittorrent clients.

You do know Murdoch only owns about 30% of Sky though, right?

That's 30% too much to make it palatable.

EDIT - Kissyfur should learn Usenet and be done with it!

I've just watched episode 4 and it was very good - some nice bits not in the comics and a big chunk of stuff that is - just what I want to see in a TV adaptation.

How many shows do you usually watch at once, then?

I'm obviously a bit less enamoured of this show than everyone else, ever. It just feels a bit predictable and a lot plodding. Liked the resolution of the storyline with the gang in Ep 4, though.

No, you're not alone. I don't think it's brilliant either. I could write at length at why I know it's broken but I don't have the time. Basically the pacing is fucked, completely. It isn't gritty enough either, by a long stretch. Sure the fanboys love it as they're privy to the character shading and plot arcs, those of us who aren't are finding it unengaging as it seems to have this slow measured pace of clunky character development scenes sprinkled in, which are probably lifted verbatim from the comic, but simply being used as flags to draw your attention to one of the characters in that reminiscence about to come a cropper later that same episode. There are too many examples of frankly fucking idiotic behaviour being used as plot devices to create tension, but how anybody who hasn't read the comics can give a flying fuck about the characters when they're that stupid and deserve to be fucking dead, has a huge impact on any tension.

It is weird. It has all the ingredients to be something truly special but it feels like there's a committee at the tiller fucking everything up. The only thing I can't complain about is the make-up department. The make-up and zombie effects are first class. It's a shame the script is so-so and the characters are all 2D ciphers.

I'm quite disappointed as I was expecting something awesome and what I got wasn't crap, but it's a long way shy of as good as most of the people in this thread find it.

I know what you mean about it not being gritty enough. The whole art style is incredibly clean, and everybody feels like they're still pretending rather than in the scenes they're supposed to be experiencing. There's absolutely no tension, and although some of the scenes have been interesting, I'm finding the whole thing a bit too emotionless. Oh well.

Not sure I concur, because it's still getting 4.8 million viewers into the fourth week -- the "most-watched scripted programme on cable among adults aged 18-49". They can't all be fanboys of the comic.

Sure, because it's a TV series about zombies, so loads of people were always going to watch it almost no matter what. I agree that the problem is mostly that it just isn't compelling but also not very scary. That one Charlie Brooker did was better and that was sort of a comedy.

Same here now to be honest. I'm still going to watch it to find out what happens but I am definitely coming around to DBSnappa's way of thinking.
It could be a lot better. I'm not even sure it needs to be grittier, just cleverer. It's a bit "mass market appeal" I'm afraid.

What do you think of the program though, compared to me? Bet you're aware of the flaws but more forgiving aren't you? Would this have anything to do with you liking the comics?

I haven't read the comics and I'm certain my grievances are legitimate as I can't read between the lines in the episodes and have to work with what I see as I don't know any different

Those viewing figures bring nothing to the argument as far as I'm concerned. They don't address the flaws in the program. It makes not a jot of difference to me if this runs away as a success or not, for me to continue into series two there's going to have to be a seismic shift in quality in the next two episodes. I agree that they're not all fanboys, but neither am I and I've watched it all so far. That's the thing though, I keep coming back optimistically hoping it's going to get better, but I know it's only six episodes which is an acceptable limit of time invested in something to make up my mind. Also, I couldn't criticise it if I didn't watch it could I? The thing is, it isn't delivering on it's promises of excellence AFAIC and I doubt very much I'll be watching series 2. It isn't good enough. IMO

Actually, I know exactly where I've stopped caring too much about this. S01E04 spoilers:



I've had a bit of a think, and this is turning out to feel exactly like Jericho, but featuring zombies. It's the same ‘we have to solve this specific, entirely contained problem this episode’ with no feel of a wider arc. I hope it gets better, as I'm feeling very little urge to carry on with it; it's all been done before, by better shows.

Jericho was brilliant.

It was, but it wasn't even remotely believable (especially towards the end). But my complaint is that this is Jericho. I've seen it before.

There's fuck all else on.

I enjoy watching it.

I've read the comics. There's not an awful lot of character shading in them, either.

With you on the issue of characters doing idiotic things for the sake of the plot, though. One of the reasons I stopped watching Battlestar fucking Galactica was because it kept pulling that shit.

Well it's still working for me, I thought Episode 4 was excellent, arguably the best so far.

I'm not expecting fucking Shakespeare, I just want to be entertained by an interesting story and characters I've invested some emotional currency in, along with decent zombie action and a proper 'end of the world' feeling - Walking Dead is delivering that and I'm enjoying it very much.

I've never read the comics and I know nothing about them, so I'm taking the series entirely on its own merits.

It's not perfect of course, but overall I think it's a fine slice of telly.

Half way through ep3 (thanks K!) and this continues to be excellent. It diverges from the comic, but it's very much in the spirit of the source material. Re; the Jericho comparison, the comic was necessarily episodic, so its not an odd thing for this to do. Plus I've never seen jericho so who cares.

You should watch Jericho.

I have no idea what it is.

I have no idea what that is.

I have no idea what that is.

Are you going to keep saying that until someone tells you?

Well if you already know all about it, I won't bother explaining it.

I WISH I was that clever.

Episode 5: really quite good! Enjoying it again

I'm basically a sucker for anything that uses John Murphy's Adagio In D Minor, so I approve of Episode 5.

Next one is last in the series right? It's certainly getting good.

Episode 4 was good.

Entire writing staff let go before season 2: http://go.ign.com/fiua8m

Uhhh...

And using Torchwood as an example of how they think they should work is rather disturbing!

This is the Torchwood joint venture between the BBC and Starz, which has a completely different production system to the previous BBC-only ones. A different unproven production system.

Episode 5: meh. They'll have to do something fuck-awesome for me to watch season 2.

Seriously?! That was the best one so far!

Was it? I can't even remember what happened it was that dull.

Yeah, it's still not really working for me. It just feels like a bunch of zombie movie clichés done reeeeeeeeeeeally slooooooooooooowly.

Ep 5 was wunderbar. The relationships between the characters are being handled every bit as well as in the graphic novels.

ep 6 is [Legally being acquired for evaluation] and I'll be watching it in an hour or so.

DAMN YOU BEEX.

Also, Rodders is a big wrongy wrong face from wrongville. And I should know, as I'm THE MAYOR.

Got Ep05 to watch tomorrow, heard mixed things about it so will be interesting to see how it pans out.

Then Ep06 is the last for this series isn't it?

Any ideas how quickly series 2 will be along? Has it just been commissioned but not actually written or anything yet?

Episode 5 was awesome.

I am not sure there is a real episode 6 yet.

I think its shown tonight in the US , so you'll either be downloading a fake or getting confused between a 5 and a 6 (if you look closely the 6 has more bits on it and looks a little rounder)

There are fakes out there, I checked which must be what wrongceslas was downloading.