SummaryThe latest Walking Dead spin-off is set after the zombie apocalypse and the first generation born are coming-of-age including Hope (Alexa Mansour) and Iris (Aliyah Royale).
SummaryThe latest Walking Dead spin-off is set after the zombie apocalypse and the first generation born are coming-of-age including Hope (Alexa Mansour) and Iris (Aliyah Royale).
This is not a perfect series: The shots of the undead often look cheap and the rules of how these monsters are evaded have never felt more loosely applied. And yet there’s a willingness to reinvent, to genuinely probe a corner of the universe previously untouched, that makes this series feel serious in its intent and, for fans of the forerunning series, well worth checking out.
A focus on younger, female characters buys “World Beyond” a somewhat fresh take initially but by the end of the first hour sisters Iris (Aliyah Royale) and Hope (Alexa Mansour) take off on a distaff “Stand by Me”-style quest to rescue their scientist father with two nerdy boys in tow.
The season finale of The Walking Dead: World Beyond was amazing, this was a solid first season and cannot wait for the next and final season. Nico Tortorella, Annet Mahendru, Alexa Mansour, Nicolas Cantu, Ted Sutherland, Aliyah Royale, Scott Adsit, and Hal Cumpston gave phenomenal performances. The special effects makeup for the zombies is astounding, it is so realistic, creepy, and awesome it is insane, and the normal hair and makeup was good. The sets were outstanding, so cool looking. The writing was pretty terrific. The costumes were excellent especially ones wore by Nico Tortorella, Annet Mahendru, Ted Sutherland, Nicolas Cantu, Aliyah Royale, and Julia Ormond. The music is great. This is one of my favorite new shows of 2020 and one of my favorite shows of all time, an A+ first season.
There are so many obvious things wrong with World Beyond, AMC's bland Walking Dead spin-off for the youth. The main characters are nice, brilliant, and boring.
Nothing about it is essential, or even that interesting. Diehards might enjoy it, simply because it promises to deliver exactly the same stuff they’ve been watching for the last 10 years. Everyone else can safely give it a pass.
Those of us who tune in to the other two shows in the franchise have already been here, seen this — and we’ve seen it done with greater artfulness, efficacy and urgency. Adding this third series to the rotation, even temporarily, feels more than a little bit like beating an undead horse.
Spinoffs require runway and World Beyond, which has no direct narrative or character connections to The Walking Dead, has basically none. It just isn't very good.
It should come as no surprise that after 10 seasons of zombie apocalypse drama on The Walking Dead and five seasons following the same madness in a different location on its spinoff, Fear the Walking Dead, AMC further extended its doomed landscape into another era with The Walking Dead: World Beyond. Is it necessary? Absolutely not. Does it work? Meh, sometimes.
I happen to like it better than Fear of the Walking Dead, but that's not saying much. There is some potential intrigue with the new world order (I forgot what it's called), but that's about it. I'll still watch it though, because anything with 'empties' in it is fine by me.
Season 1:
Having watched episode 7, I'm raising my rating from 5 to 6.
Having watched episode 6, I raised my rating from a 4 to 5.
What happened?
A better director and better writers.
And, of course Ted Sutherland as Percy and Scott Adsit as Tony continued their roles.
Michael Cudlitz brings a significant upgrade in directing and overall experience in film.
Maya Goldsmith and Eddie Guzelian provided better writing.
It's very interesting to see a series improve like this.
Episode 7 was a lot about Annet Mahendru as Jennifer "Huck" Mallick. Some of her scenes I would rate as high as 8 - but, some as low as 4. She is struggling with her interpretation of a female US Marine. When she isn't portraying the tough side of her Marine character, she turns out some very good acting. The showrunner (Matthew Negrete) needs to find some budget to bring in an acting coach to teach Mahendru how to portray a tough Marine vet character.
As I've said frequently, I've learned not to judge a series too quickly in its first season.
By the way, Hal Cumpston (playing Silas Plaskett) shows potential as an actor. I'm thinking he might have a good career as an actor. It looks like he will have a bigger role in episode 8 (based on the previews) and it will be interesting to see how that works out.
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I've watched episode 6 and I'm updating my review.
In episode 6, two new characters are introduced:
Ted Sutherland as Percy
Scott Adsit as Tony
These are significant improvements over existing actors and could possibly be strong enough to save the series from termination.
I'll give credit to the writing and the directing for these two new characters also.
I don't like beating up on aspiring actors - but, Aliyah Royale as Iris Bennett is horribly miscast, badly directed, poorly written and damages the series. Aliyah may be a perfectly fine actor - but, this role in this series is not good for her career.
Episode 6 demonstrate that this series could be much, much better. I have found often that it takes a new series a while to find its edge.
I'm going to raise my rating to a 5 in hopes that improvement continues.
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A G-rated version of The Walking Dead is boring.
"The Walking Dead: World Beyond" is a version of the zombie genre Walking Dead franchise oriented to a young teen demographic.
I'm an adult - so, it's difficult for me to put myself in the place of a 13 year old watching this series - but, I really did not find it very compelling.
First the acting...
The four teen character leads are played by accomplished actors to varying degree of success.
Nicolas Cantu (playing Elton Ortiz) is by far the more interesting of the four lead actors playing one of the 4 teen character roles.
The next 2, Alexa Mansour (playing Hope Bennet) and Hal Cumpston (playing Silas Plaskett) are just OK.
Aliyah Royale (playing Iris Bennett) was painfully boring - which was not entirely her fault... a lot of the problem is the writing and directing.
Part of the problem is that the thinking of a a normal teenager is not particularly compelling. And the idea of putting 4 normal, typical, young, bland teenagers in a zombie environment is kind-of a boring thing to watch. Obviously it can be made interesting - but, these characters are written as a G-rated to PG-rated types - and, that doesn't leave a lot of room for compelling character development. The blood-and-gore of zombie genre in and of itself is not particularly interesting. It is all the other aspects of life that drive a good zombie story. If the producers of this series thing the blood-and-gore of zombies will make this series successful - they are mistaken.
It's difficult for young adults to play the role of young teenagers. In fact, I sometimes think older, more accomplished actors pull off some of the aspects of young teen roles better.
It isn't really fair to watch just one episode and make a judgement about a series. It is not uncommon for a new series to take an entire first season to develop into a quality product.
I think I may try a few more episode and perhaps I'll come back and give a higher rating.
Who knows... maybe young teenagers may like this series. I may be the wrong demographic.
A sign of just how much this franchise has jumped its own dead shark. While the actors try hard with what they are given (and one is just a joy to look at) the plot is so uninspired and predictable it feels like it was written via TVTropes.
Its good that its a short duration spin off but the real question is if it will even be able to make it that long. The characters are unlikable, the setting is illogical, and we hit zombie saturation BEFORE The Walking Dead began. What we have now is a franchise that simply will not die.
They went for the head by announcing the end of TWD, but WB just keeps clawing behind us like a walker crawling on the ground that has no legs.