{"id":58243,"date":"2016-04-06T11:30:28","date_gmt":"2016-04-06T16:30:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=58243"},"modified":"2016-04-06T13:52:38","modified_gmt":"2016-04-06T18:52:38","slug":"great-expectations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=58243","title":{"rendered":"Great Expectations"},"content":{"rendered":"

First, let me establish a couple things.<\/p>\n

I’ve never really been into comic books. It just wasn’t really a thing when I was a kid. \u00a0 I won’t say “you stopped reading comic books when you were 12” where I came from. \u00a0But I guess I did.<\/p>\n

And while\u00a0I am a pretty “live and let live” kind of guy, who is perfectly fine letting people have their own foibles\u00a0and peccadilloes, I’ve always found over-the-top comic book fans inscrutable. That’s a polite way to put it; I’m tempted to mock intolerant people who get into holy wars\u00a0about the DC and Marvel “universes”.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Comedy? Or documentary? You be the judge.<\/p><\/div>\n

Like Star Trek fans writing each other out of their wills for preferring “Next Generation” over the Gene\u00a0Roddenberry original, or Star Wars fans literally \u2013 I’m not making this up \u2013 screaming in anger over\u00a0George Lucas’ re-editing of the Cantina scene in Srar Wars. \u00a0<\/i>I’ve always found the obsessions of fanboys worth a chuckle: “Comic Store Guy” may be the only character on The Simpsons that really sticks with me; \u00a0he’s so brilliantly dead on, I can practically smell the waves of postadolescent funk rolling off of him. There\u00a0just isn’t much in comic book “culture” that’s ever interested me. \u00a0(Except, of course, for The Flaming Carrot<\/i>, which was a glorious spoof of comic book “culture”, and Queen and Country<\/i>, which was just cool. Shut up).<\/p>\n

And adaptations of comic books? X-Men? Captain America? Iron Man? Avengers? I’ve never watched any of them. I really just don’t care.<\/p>\n

\"\"

This ain’t hell. But it’s close.<\/p><\/div>\n

So I’m probably as surprised as you are that I ever tuned in AMCs “The Walking Dead”. Moreso, in fact; I’ve always hated the horror genre, zombie movies in particular.<\/p>\n

But I binge watched the first four seasons on Netflix; for seasons five and six, the weekly installments are just about the only thing I ever watch on my actual TV anymore. \u00a0It’s generally more or less capably written, frequently well acted, and by hook or crook generally winds up being a fairly addictive watch, even for this famously nonaddictive viewer.<\/p>\n

\"\"

“Hey – didn’t you play an almost identical part in Jericho<\/i>?<\/p><\/div>\n

But the most interesting thing about The Walking Dead is it’s timing. Think about previous shows that won the title of “number one show on television”; they cover a wide stretch of the media waterfront, obviously, but most of them have something to do with the mood of the nation at the time.<\/p>\n

And for the last six years, the most popular show on American television is about a small group of misbegotten friends and neighbors surviving a civilization-ending catastrophe. \u00a0In the age of Obama, the number one show through most of the administration has been about complete, absolute, existential collapse.<\/p>\n

And so I watch.<\/p>\n

A cliffhanger out of a mole hil<\/b>l: if you have been near a browser or television for the past few weeks, don’t kid yourself; you’ve heard people talking about TWD’s season six finale, last Sunday night.<\/p>\n

There has been much Sturm und Drang<\/em>\u00a0about the episode; \u00a0superfans, especially the ones who go back to the comic book, have referred to it as a “jumping the shark” moment.<\/p>\n

Of course, they tend to be the same people who get disappointed by episodes where there is more story and less chopping off zombie heads, so I take that with a grain \u2013 no, a block – \u00a0of salt.<\/p>\n

So I won’t go that far. Fact is, I expected a lot from last Sunday’s season finale – and year in, year out, the show has delivered.<\/p>\n

But I have a couple of big beefs with the story, anyway.<\/p>\n

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“Negan”. The comic version. Not that it makes much difference at this point.<\/p><\/div>\n

The first is with the idea of the Omniscient Villain. \u00a0To fully explain this, I have to throw out a bunch of spoilers \u2013 so I won’t.<\/p>\n

But the worst, dumbest, most insulting overstretch of the imagination and over suspension of disbelief?<\/p>\n

One of my favorite characters is Abraham \u2013 a grizzled veteran of combat, not just against zombies but against actual armed, trained humans.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Patton’s armored column drives toward the Elbe River. No, just kidding. It’s the group, debouching from their chosen combat vehicle.<\/p><\/div>\n

The season finale asked us to accept\u00a0the notion that a\u00a0supposedly seasoned veteran of actual armed combat, would accept\u00a0the idea that, although the party is at war with a large, powerful, human enemy\u00a0(not to mention a countryside awash in zombies), he would allow Rick to\u00a0load the entire group, including the sick pregnant girl, into a Winnebago \u2013 a flimsy, unreliable, unarmored, heavily-glassed-in vehicle that\u00a0is the absolute\u00a0worst combat vehicle ever designed \u2013 and blunder around the post-apocalyptic countryside, like they’re Chevy Chase on the way to Wallyworld, with no scouts, no reconnaissance, no mutually supporting teams, no overwatch?<\/p>\n

\"\"

Tactically speaking, this might have been a better formation than they tried in the Season 6 finale. Even with red coats and pipes and drums.<\/p><\/div>\n

Not only did I not buy it, I groaned \u00a0out loud. \u00a0These\u00a0<\/em>idiots survived the apocalypse for two years?<\/p>\n

This is what happens when comic book writers take over.<\/p>\n

Note to producer Scott Gimpl, if you happen to be reading this: it was a terrible ending to a good season. Don’t do it again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First, let me establish a couple things. I’ve never really been into comic books. It just wasn’t really a thing when I was a kid. \u00a0 I won’t say “you stopped reading comic books when you were 12” where I came from. \u00a0But I guess I did. And while\u00a0I am a pretty “live and let […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-n-e"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58243"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58261,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58243\/revisions\/58261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}