Fear the Walking Dead: Dead in the Water

The purpose of this miniseries is to explain the events linking Jason Riley-an officer aboard a U. S. military submarine armed with nuclear weapons-with Teddy Maddox, the deranged mastermind from Season 6 of Fear the Walking Dead. In this respect, it provides additional context and serves as a clear prologue to events in the main series. At the same time, it delivers fresh material by presenting a standalone survival story set at the very beginning of the outbreak. Quite a lot happens within a short runtime, which makes the pacing rather fast-perhaps even too fast at times. Acting-wise, the miniseries doesn't start particularly strong, and the cast could have delivered a more compelling performance early on. However, the acting improves as the episodes progress. All in all, it's a reasonably enjoyable miniseries within The Walking Dead universe.

Fear the Walking Dead: Dead in the Water is a good example what's wrong with the whole TWD franchise since season 5 or 6 of the mothership TWD - the writing is lazy and not only occasionally plain stupid. I never was on board of a submarine but can't imagine that a zombie outbreak would overtake the crew in such a way (the show makes a convenient time jump, so the writers don't have to explain how the infected take over the sub), I just mention all those bulkheads, close them and you are save and/or you can confine the infected, on top, secure and control the Combat Information Center - easy work for a military crew, one might think. Anyway, the little show is not a total fail and not worse than the regular Fear the Walking Dead show (I must admit, that I do not watch that one anymore and missed the last two or three seasons) but you get just served the same lukewarm characters like in all the other shows, nothing really makes sense or provides real suspense, it's like eating a cheeseburger while you still do some stuff on your machine.

TWD Webisodes have not always been great. The original ones by Greg Nicotero (Torn Apart, Cold Storage and The Oath) were all very great! But after that, they went downhill. Flight 462, Passage and Red Machete were meh. Dead in the water was a great standalone short that shed light on an intriguing villain and expands the universe. I was seriously expecting to hate this! But wow this was loads of fun. Nick Stahl absolutely killed it! If it's possible to get him an Emmy for this, do it! The ending was brilliant to. Awesome work team.

The premise in the show decription makes it look like it all takes place inside a submarine. It only STARTS in a submarine. Great cast, though the dialogue mostly sounds wooden in the first episode. The timing was way off in some scenes. But the thing that really botthered me was the atrocious makeup job done on the undead. I swear, the white makeup is no better than circus clown makeup. A couple zombies looked like they had zinc oxide cream thickly spread on their faces. I could actually see the THICK outline of the cake makeup. This made it impossible to take them seriously.

The director needs to quit his damn job as he obviously doesn't seem to pay attention to detail. Go back to being a producer, dude. Money is your wheelhouse, not directing.

Sure there are flaws in this series, but if you just sit back and relax, it's an enjoyable back story that we should've had before we met Riley.

It's a shame he was wasted on FearTWD, 8/10.