transientdreams

At the rate this, and other WD shows are raking in tens-of-millions, you would think SOMEONE would invest maybe a LITTLE bit more in decent writing talent. No, far less! 'The Walking Dead: Dead City' suffered the same fate, but not as badly. It just went nowhere. Not even in a complete circle. But, this last episode here of 'The Ones Who Live' was a doozy of lazy, overly-sentimental, and sappy, crappy garbage writing! Whomever green-lighted this script must have never read a decent thriller in their lives! Even WORSE than formulaic, cliched repetition! Like TOO many great spinoffs, they invest LESS in the writing skills when a lot MORE should be the agenda! This started great the first 3 episodes, and then began to suck worse that a leech farm to the idiot ending. Even La Brea had more suspense and better writing than this, and it stunk to high heaven most of the time. It's a mockery of great acting talent and truly embarrassing to watch for anyone with an IQ above 110.

Writing great horror is hard to do in any genre, but made-for-TV horror absolutely sucks here in the states overall. It seems mostly made BY simpletons, about simpletons, FOR simpletons. The term 'Dumbing-Down' has never been so tragically illustrated as with a least 3 of the WD spinoffs! So, my ONLY question to the sub-par geniuses of this show, and others, is WHY DO YOU HIRE THE WORST WRITERS AND DIRECTORS when, for a few million bucks more, you could actually give us something worthy of an intellect over 12-14 years old?? It's greed, avarice, and MORE greed. Why?? Because you have made your billions, and we don't matter anymore as a viewing public. At least the ones of us with any discerning taste in on-screen dialog that isn't painfully predictable, or doesn't make us CRINGE every 3 minutes! Keep your slow-witted garbage and give us something professional, and worthy of OUR dedication to YOUR craft!

The depth of the screen writing really caught me off-guard here. I had gotten so used to the mundane and repetitive mellow drama of the Walking Dead series and spin-offs that I actually had to watch a few scenes more than once. Some of the dialog almost takes the place of the action at times, as is should in any great action movie. So many great Horror/paranormal TV series suffer from trying to be sensitive and politically correct, while also appealing to as many people as possible. Bad formula! The entire series of 'Le Brea' is the archetypal example of a completely failed script writing that was unworthy of both actors and all behind-the-scenes talent. When I see a series like Reacher, as well as many others, I am reminded that it's all about the money, and the shortsightedness of people with no creative vision whatsoever. If a show is a hit, why try to improve it? Even if it's kinda lame, and cliche and full of people reminiscing about their past traumas through half of an episode. I think those days are OVER now. 'Continuity' has to exist both emotionally, dramatically, and 'actionably'(My word, you can use it). Meaning that ALL forms of filler-drama, retro-memories, crying jags and meaningless babble have to be kept to a meaningful minimum that doesn't slow the entire episode down to a crawl. This show is how it SHOULD be done, and nothing less should be expected.

It really hurts to see such a great premise over-run by pretense and numerous 'what-if' afterthoughts, and then losing a cohesive and consistently driven plot-line down one rabbit-hole after another until it leaves us all hanging like some teasing, TV pilot episode. Not to mention holes galore, and a scene at the beach that was just embarrassingly botched by a lack of continuity and basic common sense. How do you stand on high ground and notice something tiny and shiny, but yet not notice something massive, terrifying and devastating in both directions very near by?? You don't! That was a truly embarrassing scene to watch. No plausibility whatsoever. For a movie that afforded itself 2 hours of runtime, it was an absolute burn to the rest of the viewing audience. The suspense was awesome at the beginning, but kept slowing down every 5 minutes as the characters started acting stupider and stupider. Mixed messages, inconsistent character strengths, stupid children with almost zero personality, something on the verge of being discovered or explained...and the ball gets dropped again, and again...and again. Ending a movie like this did was basically a slap-in-the-face to every "thinking" person watching. Yes, many are going to get it and be fine with it as it stands, but it was like there 4 writers and 4 directors all indulging their own vision at the same time. Pick a direction and go hard, and keep the rest of the idiot cooks OUT of the kitchen!