Fear the Walking Dead

Credibility aside, the slow disintegration plays out in satisfyingly tense if formulaic fashion.

Fear has some immediate strengths, as well as weaknesses that could drag down the proceedings considerably.

The 90-minute first episode and the hour-long second episode are, while not actually boring, certainly less magnetic than the original.

A second episode, fortunately, improves matters considerably, mostly in charting how the uncertainty of what’s happening begins to break down society, from civil unrest to rampant fear of the unknown. This hour points in a more promising direction, although as yet the characters still seem a little malnourished, particularly compared with the original.

There's a minimum of gore--these walkers are slow and more intact at this stage--though there are a few zombie fake-outs. But instead of building tension these sequences merely underscore the tedium.

Fear the Walking Dead is far less satisfying from a creative standpoint than Vince Gilligan's prequel offering. It's neither as original or relevant, and it certainly failed to break free of any formal restrictions. Perhaps most importantly, though, the new series lacks a beating heart.

Fear the Walking Dead probably is in no danger of becoming and out-and-out flop in its first season. But its opening episode is appreciably less gripping than the 2010 unveiling of the smash hit original.

Fear the Walking Dead takes Los Angeles, and itself, very seriously. So seriously that in the first two episodes it is sometimes difficult not to laugh. At the general cluelessness of the characters, at the intensity of the local "realism," at the heavy-handedness of the Cinematic Symbols of Foreboding (Beware the Bounce House) and the sight of so many fine actors trying to keep their feet in a promising but initially borderline-absurd narrative.

Unfortunately, the first episode is workmanlike to a fault: It sets up its characters, throwing in some forgettable, tedious character moments so we can care about them. Fear the Walking Dead doesn’t really kick into gear until Travis and Madison realize that the world has gone wrong.

Fear resorts to the dumbest of jump scares and runs in circles. You’ll get impatient for a walker to come chomping by. You might be disappointed when one does. An action sequence that caps the extended premiere is choppy and amateurishly directed.