You are spot on regarding Falling Skies it has gotten stale and a bit silly with all the half alien daughter thing and the flying semi intelligent bug aliens, et al. I only watch it from habit, in a halfhearted way, because it is on the DVR, and the series is winding down to a final episode fairly soon.

Carol is also my overall favorite character. An example of how the TV series differs from the comic, Carol committed suicide by zombie while they were at the prison. She is a totally different character in the series. They don’t mind killing off major characters but I would hate to see her go. Thankfully there is no sign that she is in any danger.

I only started watching TV with any regularity when I discovered TIVO 6-7 years ago. I also could not commit to being in a certain place at a certain time. Even with TIVO there were few shows I cared to watch, what with reading and my outside activities and carousing.

I am so old and worn out anymore TV and a little computer stuff is about all the entertainment/activity I can handle. My eyes are not that good and even back lighted E books are somewhat painful to digest. So, I watch a lot of TV these days and it keeps me entertained. No TIVO anymore but Uverse provides a good DVR that can record up to 3 HD programs at a time, so I am all set.

Netflix is a great source for serialized TV. I caught up with Breaking Bad on Netflix when I discover that gem. Mad Men is another series that I may or may not get around to in the future. My limited exposure to Mad Men makes me think that I lived it, and for some reason this makes me reluctant to get involved with it, but maybe someday.

Carol is my favorite character. She has transformed the most, and I see myself in her now as the Susie Homemaker/stockpiling weapons. I felt Sasha’s angst at the welcoming party at Alexandria, where she twists off on the only worry a community member has is serving the wrong food. I really get that. That is my default button, which is twisting off on sanitized life.

Daryl is Daryl,the redneck, but he is being nurtured to love and care.
Rick is the reluctant hero and I love protective males with a soft side. Mishone is the true tragedy. She is holding on to her past with all she has.

Carl is the equivalent to John Connor from the Terminator. he will never know the other life.

Herschel…oh Herschel…the see the good in any situation simple man, and Dale, the righteous one.

I avoided the recent gearing up for season 6 AMC marathons because after the CDC episode, it was clear there was no way in bloody hell I could watch episode on top of episode. I immerse myself into these characters and I am exhausted after just one episode and ruminate the implications of human existence for days.

As the story unfolds, it becomes obvious that the massive numbers of slow moving and decaying zombies are not the main problem. It is the living that present the greatest threat. We can wipe out the zombies eventually, but not if we have to fight our own kind on a second front.

I am generally intrigued by any apocalyptic or dystopian fiction. In TWD the zombies are a nice side show but the story would be similar if they were living in a world of plague survivors without zombies.

I am also equally intrigued by scifi that projects an epic future for humanity, where we populate the galaxy and become godlike through our technology. I suppose the apocalypse is a natural counterpoint to my visions of a great human future.

Jody, you should also watch the new “Fear The Walking Dead”. It is of course by the same producers but it takes place in Los Angeles and it starts early in the crisis and provides a better overview of the collapse, in a larger context than rural Georgia. I don’t know how it will shake out but the pilot was very entertaining.

As I am sure you know, TWD is based on a graphic novel, (er…comic book), of the same name. My interest was sufficient to order the books and I kind of know where the TV show is heading. They don’t follow the comic exactly, (Rick lost his right hand in the comic), and have a few different characters, but the new villains have always been true to the comic and they usually kill off the same major characters eventually. The point being if you don’t like spoilers, stay away from the comics.

Studies on commercials and film cinematography have documented and quantified these new techniques, its what is being taught in film schools, they have been used to cram more content into shorter time spans, and to ensure that people’s minds don’t wander or get bored–or think too much about what they are being sold.

We’re old farts, we’re not used to this frantic editing, its not part of our cinematographic experience, we find it disorienting, or annoying, once we realize what they are doing and why. But Gen Xers and Millenials are comfortable with it, in fact, they expect it.

We are being monitored and studied so they can sell to us more effectively, which affects how programming is put together and the film maker’s vocabulary. Show kids today a film by Kubrick, like “2001″, or “Barry Lyndon”, with its long, slow scenes, deliberate pacing and meticulous visual development and gradual transformation, and the kids just lose interest. Its what they call BOR-ING.

I am very selective with what I watch, but every now and then…

I have noticed an extreme de-evolution in commercials lately. Really sad if this is the mentality of people. The adds are so fast, choppy and flashy and loud….I feel like I could go into an epileptic seizure. Or I am out growing everything.

Ruh roh…I digressed….again.

The story follows an armed brigade (company or battalion sized, plus their assorted non-combatant families and support groups) that is conducting guerrilla operations against a technologically far superior, and totally nasty, force of off-world invaders who have laid waste to the world, totally defeated most organized human resistance and are systematically enslaving the survivors. But not only are they fighting aliens, and their human quisling allies, but renegade groups of humans who have no allegiance to either side. To make things even more complicated, the aliens (there are several species of them) seem to be splitting into factions, some of which ally themselves with the humans.

Eventually, our heroes stumble onto a large stronghold of humans also at war with the aliens, and are absorbed into it. Of course, this new group has its own political and military agendas. Our heroes are willing to fight alongside their new allies, but they also wish to maintain their own independence, and inevitably, differences in strategy and command conflicts and rivalries rear their ugly heads.

I eventually lost interest. I had trouble keeping track of all the factions.

In the fenced in community of Alexandria, where a female politician has set up a self sustain environment, is when the lies surface. Not the lies of the Walking Dead family. They are raw and completely truthful. The lies of the community. The walking dead family sense this. They struggle to belong. Maybe being primal is real.

I love this show because it reveals the transformation , the seedy side of where society can go. It allows me the guilty pleasure of what is capable in all of us. And the good.

Death is the ultimate prize in real life. Utopia.

Not here. No way. No how. I am fascinated with choices people make.

It has never been about the Zombies for me. It is about the make shift family that evolves. Their strengths. The decisions they make. The reticence to trust. The way they hold on to hope. Very revealing about human nature, to me.