Ok, I really love this show. But...

[JDFP]

because even in the universe of the story there is no precedent for a virus causing it and still none of them have any idea if thats the case. the writers of the show add nudges to push them that way specifically. Might they have thought of it? perhaps. But this is not a story of 'rick finding out what caused it and saving the world' robert kirkman started the walking dead with one idea and one goal he himself set out in his introduction to the series: "Whilst the scientists and soldiers are all in that bunker from day of the dead trying to save the world the walking dead is the story of the poor bastards who just try to survive whilst the main characters do that" How is going to the cdc after its clearly been abandoned every going to help them survive? They have no idea what is happening. they are two cops and some random civilians. Are they expecting some vaccine with a genetics and virology for dummies guide on how to save themselves? Thats what i dont like, not that its a virus. That it so clearly goes against the ethos of the walking deads sole idea as a story. It is a story where the dead walk now. dont know why, how or when if ever they will stop. but that is the world rick lives in now. watch them deal with it. badly. Only thats not the tv show. the tv show already shows what causes the bodys to move. so either they reveal what the source of that is or dont and then what was the point of that to begin with? a season finale to establish the 'if you are bitten you are dead' rule? comics did that just fine without the cdc. Thats why i didnt like it. it was pointless, and inferior to the end of the comics first volume that was literally ending on a whimper rather than a bang but it was so much more effective, so much more human and so much less spectacular. and that at the end of the day is the walking dead. what i saw in that finale was not. Hence why i did not like it compared to the comic. In all fairness, as I've mentioned, I haven't read the comics. I'm just saying from my perspective if something crazy like this was going on my first thought would be to go somewhere where someone MIGHT have some type of answers to what is going on. If someone is sick they go to a doctor - not because they automatically think that the doctor will cure anything wrong with them - but because they know a doctor can give them (usually) some type of answer as to what is wrong with them. The issue of the CDC is the same. I don't think anyone expected to go to the CDC and automatically discover doctors furiously working around the clock and a "magic" cure to be there - but in the small chance that there might be someone there who can give them some type of answer as to why what is happening is happening. This is why I would have been insulted if they hadn't tried for the CDC with it being so close by to where they were. I could understand if it was 200 miles out of the way, but it's like 20 miles instead. Why is it difficult to imagine going somewhere where someone might have some type of answer for what is happening or have knowledge of somewhere safe to go (i.e. the CDC communicating with the government) to be safer as a group? Of course none of them know for sure if it's a virus. But it's a damn good guess - far more realistic than "God did it!" in jumping to conclusions. So if it's a good possibility why not investigate it where there may be answers for what is happening? If I was sick I wouldn't automatically think: "Oh, Satan is making me ill! It's a demon inside of me!" because living in the 21st century (as these people in the show do, their world is not much different from ours being that the only distinction I can really see is that Romero zombie films never existed there) we as MOST rational humans just don't think this way. We tend to think in rational ways (for the *most* part). If I'm sick go to the doctor. If something is happening for zombies to come alive and eat people - and we're only a few miles away from the CDC where there are doctors and scientists - go see if they are there and they can tell us something/anything. I can understand your appreciation for it all being "a mystery" as opposed to understanding why it happened - but I personally appreciate the fact that they give us some type of understanding for what is going on - I think the fact that they know what is happening but they can't do anything about it (it's too late, there aren't the resources available, etc.) if even more menacing. If you were there in that situation wouldn't you want to try to find some type of answers for what is going on and try to seek out places where you knew you might get some answers? j.p.

[Danny]

I can understand your appreciation for it all being "a mystery" as opposed to understanding why it happened - but I personally appreciate the fact that they give us some type of understanding for what is going on - I think the fact that they know what is happening but they can't do anything about it (it's too late, there aren't the resources available, etc.) if even more menacing. If you were there in that situation wouldn't you want to try to find some type of answers for what is going on and try to seek out places where you knew you might get some answers? I might, but i wouldn't write it as such, that way lies the beginnings of mary sue meets larry stu territory. Like i said. ive read the comics from the start and when the focus is the zombies the lack of any information is part of the stories appeal. My gripe is by revealing it they narrowed the aperture, so to speak, of possible future story paths for no reason other than a literal explosive season finale. It was cheap and not as good as the source material. Thats just my personal reasons for not liking it. I read the walking dead for people in a horrible situation barely keeping it together. Not people doing the things the audience yells at the screen for them to do. Thats bad writing.

[kidgloves]

You have to remember that the final episodes underwent extensive rewrites especially TS-19. The goal was to NOT leave the final episode on a cliffhanger because they didn't know if they were going to get another season and wanted to leave some form of ending that could be interpreted either way. The ending of volume 1 was a massive cliffhanger and would have been a huge cock tease

[babomb]

I might, but i wouldn't write it as such, that way lies the beginnings of mary sue meets larry stu territory. Like i said. ive read the comics from the start and when the focus is the zombies the lack of any information is part of the stories appeal. My gripe is by revealing it they narrowed the aperture, so to speak, of possible future story paths for no reason other than a literal explosive season finale. It was cheap and not as good as the source material. Thats just my personal reasons for not liking it. I read the walking dead for people in a horrible situation barely keeping it together. Not people doing the things the audience yells at the screen for them to do. Thats bad writing. Why is it bad writing to interject some logic into things? I read most of the comics too. Not all of them, but I read enough to know what the differences were between the books and the show. And I was always a little put off by the fact that they never touched on an explanation, not even a half assed one. I always assumed that they beleived it be a virus because that's the only assumption that makes any sense to me. If you're living in that world, you're gonna wonder what's causing it. That can't really be argued logically. And the only conclusion a rational mind would come to is that it's a disease of some sort. What else could you possibly assume it to be? Even Herschel, a disturbingly irrational and religious man assumes it's a sickness. There's just no other conclusion to come to. And since that's the case, then going to a nearby CDC is just the logical thing to do. They're desperate! They have no interest in keeping things a mystery. They're trying to survive not make fanboys of the comic happy. And they aren't writing it according to what the audience yells at the screen for them to do. That's just silly. That's the typical "it's different from the way I saw things in my mind while reading the comics" so I'm gonna complain alot and not watch. It's a strange thing how people form these emotional attachments to arbitrary ideas from books and comics. There's a specific type of person that becomes so emotionally invested with their stories of choice that any deviation from the very specific nature in which they see it will always be a disappointment. They always have their own specific reasons and justifications for it, but in the end it comes down to the fanboy mentality. You say that you read the comics for "people in a horrible situation barely keeping it together". Well that's exactly what's going on in the show. Instead you're focusing on specific details of the show that aren't the same as the comic. So while that may be what you read the comic for, it's not what you wanted out of the show. What you wanted out of the show was a frame by frame recreation of the comic. You wanted exactly what you got from the comic. Which is impossible for a whole bunch of reasons. Many of which are covered in the "chupacabra" thread.

[bassman]

You have to remember that the final episodes underwent extensive rewrites especially TS-19. The goal was to NOT leave the final episode on a cliffhanger because they didn't know if they were going to get another season and wanted to leave some form of ending that could be interpreted either way. The ending of volume 1 was a massive cliffhanger and would have been a huge cock tease QFT. I've been saying that for a while now. While the CDC storyline was a big departure from the comics, it makes perfect sense in giving the series "closure" in case no further episodes were to follow. This is a much larger audience than the comic series. The comic fans could deal with the open ending if the story never continued, but a world-wide tv audience might not handle it so well. As you mention, Kid - They did massive rewrites to the CDC episode. So much so that the actor who played Jenner signed on for a totally different role to the one he ended up playing. While they don't go into too much detail on the special edition dvd set, I have the feeling that the episode was actually much more of an ending to the series and they changed it in the eleventh hour because they knew about the high ratings. The "whisper" was probably a direct result of that change. And just to toss it in there - I don't believe Jenner ever actually classifies the phenomenon as a virus. He only says it invades the brain like meningitis, iirc. He could only see how the brain restarted and what part came back. He didn't know what caused it to come back. So in that sense these are still very much the Romero style zombies. If Jenner did in fact suggest it was viral, it wouldn't be anymore revealing than the Venus Probe theory in Night.

[kidgloves]

QFT. I've been saying that for a while now. While the CDC storyline was a big departure from the comics, it makes perfect sense in giving the series "closure" in case no further episodes were to follow. This is a much larger audience than the comic series. The comic fans could deal with the open ending if the story never continued, but a world-wide tv audience might not handle it so well. As you mention, Kid - They did massive rewrites to the CDC episode. So much so that the actor who played Jenner signed on for a totally different role to the one he ended up playing. While they don't go into too much detail on the special edition dvd set, I have the feeling that the episode was actually much more of an ending to the series and they changed it in the eleventh hour because they knew about the high ratings. The "whisper" was probably a direct result of that change. I think Ferland mentions in the commentary that the episode was originally written from the CDC's viewpoint AS the apocalypse happened.

[MissJacksonCA]

While I'm glad its veering all I can say is really... WTF with all the drama? What I don't like about where they're going with the show vs. comic is the drama. Granted... that can add to the atmosphere but I feel like they're taking a horror and making it a drama. Its thirtysomething but with zombies. Anyone else?

[Thorn]

In all fairness, as I've mentioned, I haven't read the comics. I'm just saying from my perspective if something crazy like this was going on my first thought would be to go somewhere where someone MIGHT have some type of answers to what is going on. If someone is sick they go to a doctor - not because they automatically think that the doctor will cure anything wrong with them - but because they know a doctor can give them (usually) some type of answer as to what is wrong with them. I can respect that and appreciate the logic behind it. I am one of the people who was not a fan of the CDC episodes, not because it was not in the comics, a lot of things not in the comics that made it into the show are fine, it is what is in the spirit of the comics. I want a live action show that is not, as some have said "a frame by frame panel to panel recreation of the comic". I want the source material to be respected by the writers, and while I agree completely I would want answers if I were in the shoes of our survivors... the episodes themselves were such a stark change from both the comics, AND from the show itself it felt like watching another show not the Walking Dead. I did not care for them at all, and to me they just feel, sound, and look different so much so seem feel foreign and out of place. I disliked them a lot more than Vatos which everyone seems to hate and I honestly had few problems with those episodes I could not dismiss. Was it in the comics? Nope. Still felt like the same show though. As to others saying they hated not knowing what the reason was behind it, to me this is not an issue either. Romero never gave us answers.The movies gave us theories, but never conclusive proof and they spawned an entire genre of movies that have been very meaningful to well.. just about everyone on this site.