Journey 'Captured'

With only six episodes in 2015, ‘Fear The Walking Dead’ is fourth on my list of Best New Shows of 2015.

Unless you’ve been living in a bomb shelter on a Pacific Island, you already know that it’s a spin off of ‘The Walking Dead’ television series and comic. But it’s really more of a prequel as well as a companion television series (I do hope there’s crossover sometime down the line).

The main character is Madison Clark (Kim Dickens), school guidance counselor with a heroin addicted son Nick and overachieving poster-daughter Alicia. Madison has a boyfriend by the name of Travis who has a bit of baggage himself to bring to the zombie apocalypse.

Now things start off slow for many fans of ‘The Walking Dead’ series that don’t appreciate good storylines, acting, or character studies.

I only say that because the second episode of ‘Fear The Walking Dead’ shed nearly 2 million viewers after debut fetched over 10 million. I saw it all over social media about how boring it was… Where’s the carnage? Blah, blah, blah

And that’s too bad, really. But I guess some viewers just aren’t into really good storytelling or perhaps the deep nuisances of the series are too much to comprehend.

Oh well… I find it very interesting to see what happened at the start of the zombie apocalypse. Seeing how the masses dealt with such an absurd thing as the dead reanimating and coming after them to feed and kill.

Madison adapts quickly to the kill or be killed mentality while Travis wrestles with his liberal political leanings.

I find watching Travis very appealing because he doesn’t like his son being shown a few gun tips from Daniel (Reuben Blades) who obviously has a shady past as some kind of torturer from El Salvador. Slowly, but surely, Travis will come around to the new version of Darwinism that the zombie apocalypse will bring about.

With ‘The Walking Dead’, viewers were thrust into this apocalyptic world when Rick Grimes woke up in his hospital bed. Grimes was forced to move and react with very little time to process what was going on. In ‘Fear The Walking Dead’ it’s more of a slow burn. It’s everything we wanted to see, but some viewers don’t seem to have the patience for it.

The most interesting character would have to be Victor Strand (Colman Domingo).

We meet him in a holding cell as he takes Nick under this wing. Victor is obviously a man of means and he’s interesting because he’s not the blue collar type that permeates the original series. Victor has a seaside mansion and a yacht for escape. He has money, charisma, and “do as I shall” attitude.

Victor seems like the perfect cast member to become either a nasty villain or formidable good guy.

I honestly believe that Victor Strand will fall into the villain category.

Why?

I foresee a moment coming when Nick must make a choice. Will it be his mother Madison or Victor Strand?

We shall see how he develops when the series picks back up in the spring of 2016.