Rvrgm

Every few years a new series comes out and is hailed as the unassailable king of television… WALKING DEAD has been that series for the last few years, but I think its time, like so many before, has now come and gone. This show reminds me a lot of LOST in that it began with very strong cast of characters who could hold their own episodes - but now that it has stretched on it is becoming predictable and slow. It seems clear now, with only 3 episodes left, that the writers had no intention of launching into the new Terminus storyline until Season 5 - and so we get eight episodes shot mostly in the woods simultaneously to save on time and money. Side characters are being given full episodes to show off the actors abilities (probably before killing most of them off) and the same decisions are being rehashed and remade week after week. A single two-hour premiere could have covered the entire same ground and kept things fresh and alive.

It's the sad but true rule of television series writing - the suits invest in an infrastructure and want to get every possible dime out of it before investing in anything else, so it drags out until it becomes ludicrous and people stop watching … I'm about to decide life is too short to waste on a show that seems to only want to take up my time now rather than to actually entertain me.

This episode is just another example of what STAR TREK always did so well - take a relevant issue and explore it through the lens of an "unbiased" third-party - ie, the future generations. Sure, it is written by modern-day authors ... even so, it's informative to see how a more "enlightened" generation might handle a topic like euthanasia.

Incidentally, this concept is based loosely on a novel written in the 1880s by British novelist Anthony Trollope called THE FIXED PERIOD. In that novel, the leader of a new (fictional) British colony has passed a law requiring men at the age of 67 be put away into a tenement, and later euthanized before the age of 68 - for the same reasons, that the elderly burden the young. The story of the novel follows his attempt to carry this law out for the first time. Fascinating read, and recommended if you liked this episode.