TELEVISION TERROR
New ‘ Dead’ gets personal
No one ever said bringing about the zombie apocalypse would be easy.
But Dave Erickson, co- creator of Fear of the Walking Dead, admits he didn’t really feel the weight of responsibility until San Diego’s Comic- Con last month, long after he had entered AMC’s beloved universe of the dead. Confronted by the frenzied fandom of the convention, he began to feel the first pangs of fear and apprehension.
Thousands of obsessive fans greeted Erickson and the cast as they previewed the new series, which explores the early stages of the mysterious epidemic that turned much of the world’s population into the marauding flesh- eaters of The Walking Dead. It was a daunting reminder the universe dreamt up by comic- book writer Robert Kirkman and adapted into a ratings and critical winner for AMC has passionate guardians.
“It was 6,500, 7,000 people and I generally don’t like to talk in groups larger than two,” says Erickson, who developed the new series with Kirkman. “Yeah, there is an obligation. With the fans that the original show has, it is something to be mindful of. I’m not disregarding that and I want to embrace the fan base and I want to do a show that they feel will be a part of the larger universe.”
That may be the case. But it doesn’t take long into a conversation with Erickson to discover he is more comfortable talking about how Fear the Walking Dead, shot largely in Vancouver with an international cast, differs from its predecessor. The veteran writer and producer, whose golden- age- of- TV bona fides include working on Sons of Anarchy and AMC’s gritty Low Winter Sun, prefers the terms “companion piece” or “parallel narrative” to prequel or spinoff. It shares The Walking Dead’s basic DNA, but the differences are also immediately apparent. For one, a good deal of time is spent introducing the characters’ troubled home lives, allowing the writers to ramp up the tension and dread even before any of our protagonists catch wind that the end is nigh.
In Sunday’s season opener, we meet Los Angeles high- school English- lit teacher and divorcee Travis Manawa ( New Zealander Cliff Curtis), who has recently entered a relationship with guidance counsellor Madison Clark ( American Kim Dickens). She has two teenagers, high- achiever Alicia ( Australian Alycia Debnam- Carey) and drug- addled problem child Nick ( British actor Frank Dillane), neither of whom are particularly receptive to a new father figure. Meanwhile, Travis is attempting to reconnect with his own resentful teen son, Chris ( American Lorenzo James Henrie), who is also not interested in getting to know his father’s new family.
“Questions of divorce and surrogate fathers and surrogate sons, all of that was interesting ( to me) as well,” says Erickson. “It provided us with a template where we have a family that is already under a great deal of pressure and there is already a lot of internal conflict and then that’s just exacerbated by the onset of the apocalypse.”
When the apocalypse arrives, audiences will see something they didn’t get to see in The Walking Dead: the beginning of the end. It’s an interesting springboard that offers a different take on heroism than the original, introducing us to characters that have yet to be ruled by the survival- of- the- fittest code of The Walking Dead.
Now entering its sixth season, the walkers on that show have become easy- to- kill, mushy headed nuisances for the heroes to do away with while dealing with the far- more dangerous threat posed by factions of fellow survivors. In the new series, the characters are seeing people turn for the first time and have no idea what they are witnessing. Unlike former cops Rick and Shane in the first season of Walking Dead, Travis, Madison and their teenage offspring have no built- in self- defence or leadership skills to fall back on.
“I like the normalcy of it,” says Curtis, a New Zealand actor best known for his roles in Whale Rider, Once Were Warriors and ABC’s Missing. “He’s not like an action hero. He seems like a very normal person to me. He’s got no dark secret. He’s not like some secret operative who was in the CIA or something like that. He’s just a divorcee and his challenges in life are trying to integrate his estranged son into his new family. His daily concerns are very normal.”
This normalcy is also highlighted by the setting.
While the interior scenes of Fear the Walking Dead were shot in Vancouver, Sunday’s opener was filmed entirely in Los Angeles, giving the series a distinct sense of place from the get go.
I want to embrace the fan base and I want to do a show that they feel will be a part of the larger universe.
DAVE ERICKSON
Much of the early action unfolds in the city’s east side, workingclass neighbourhoods. This is no city of dreams, it’s a messy, diverse and noisy metropolis of four million people that are completely reliant on technology and modern conveniences. When it falls, it falls hard.
“If people get caught in traffic jams they go insane in L. A.,” says Curtis.
“Take away their cellphones, take away their power grid, take away their motorways, L. A. suddenly becomes a very frightening place and it’s got nothing to do with the virus.
“It’s just got to do with what happens with human nature when millions upon millions are all packed into this tough situation and the infrastructure fails them,” he said.
“They get upset, they get angry. That’s what they do really well with this first season, show how frightening a big city can be and what humans can do when their toys are taken away.”
Which may be how Fear the Walking Dead falls in line with both its predecessor and other entries into the increasingly crowded zombie universe.
Starting with George Romero’s 1968 pioneering classic Night of the Living Dead, these types of stories have tended to explore human nature and interaction in times of crisis.
Dickens, an American actress who has starred in character- rich shows such as House of Cards, Sons of Anarchy and Deadwood, admits she was excited to enter the horror genre for the first time. But she was also drawn in by the complexity of the flawed characters and the show’s timeless themes.
“It’s the overall theme of survival and to examine and imagine what you would do in these extreme situations,” she says. “Who would you become? Would you redefine your morals? What would you do to protect your loved ones?
“I think it’s a core ingredient in a person’s makeup that is not always tested. I think it’s fascinating to experience it through storytelling.”
Fear the Walking Dead debuts Sunday on AMC.