Walking Dead

wheeeeeeee!!!! Shane died bloody!!!! also, WTF?! why are people coming back after dying? t his raises so many issues for the group.

why are people coming back after dying?

um, because they're zombies?

Yeah, but until now, it appeared that you had to be infected to become a zombie. Until a few weeks ago, it appeared you had to be bitten to be infected. Shane had had no zombie contact recently, and he still zombified, which has people speculating that what Jenner whispered to Rick in the CDC was that everyone was infected, everyone comes back (which is how it works in the Newsflesh universe anyway). I have no idea where that zombie horde came from, but that shot was awesome.

And the scene with Rick and Shane was one of the best of the series. It was about time Shane did more than rub his head and sneer, to paraphrase the A.V. Club reviewer. It was a long time coming, and, good God, he was just despicable by the end.

Comment of the Night goes to Weasels Ripped My Flesh:

Don't come back, Shane.

thanks, P-C, for getting what i was saying.

I said the same thing about the scene between Rick and Shane. that was some beautiful cinematography. as was the walker horde! this show makes me so effing anxious!!

Don't come back, Shane.

ahahaha!!!!

There's apparently a sci fi show coming out based on the following premise:

a band of survivors struggle to navigate a world in which all forms of energy have mysteriously vanished

I can't believe people are arguing in defense of the premise, saying obviously they don't mean all, so stop being so literal.

Dude, it's your press release. If you can't actually explain your premise, why decide to jack up your premise? You just make it sound like your show will be based on crappy science. Like, worse than Primeval-science. You know the word "most", but you decided that "all" was better--it really makes me hope that JJ and Eric are bashing their heads against the wall moaning "WHY? WHY?" But, then again, it's Abrams and Kripke. I'm not actually expecting science to hold together here.

a band of survivors struggle to navigate a world in which all forms of energy have mysteriously vanished

I assume because they're not dead that "all forms of energy" means all manmade forms, or something like that? Because if there's no sun, that's gonna be a pretty short pilot.

To paraphrase, a vague PR soundbite is nobody's friend.

And, see, they could have said "most", and they could have said "manmade", and that would have generated discussion on "oh, what exactly does that encompass?" Instead of people looking at it and thinking "Oh, so there's no energy in their bodies, then, for starters? Short pilot."

It's so DUMB. And although I've greatly enjoyed work by Kripke (duh) and Abrams, neither of them give me the warm fuzzies about scientific plausibility.

I would laugh if the pilot debuted and it was just 42 minutes of silent black screen (yo, no energy means no light to see by or sound to listen to!).

It's titled Revolution. They're shooting it in Atlanta, so I've seen quite a few short articles about extras and who's here in town. In every single one, it's described as "a band of survivors struggle to navigate a world in which all forms of energy have mysteriously vanished." My eyes have been rolling painfully.

As someone on io9 noted, that's the basis for Stirling's Change series, which, despite my fondness for post-apocalypse fiction, I have not wanted to read since I saw the premise was explicitly based on changing the laws of physics. In that case, it's apparently manmade energy, including, dog help us, disabling gunpowder.

There are several series in which things like electricity and motors don't work, but magic does. That's the premise behind Stephen Boyett's Ariel, one of the worst books ever published.

Part of the concept can be done sanely, by having much of existing tech fried by some version of EMP. Raymond Jones' The Year When Stardust Fell, a book I loved as a kid, posits a substance from a comet that fuses the parts of any metal-metal friction, so ball bearings, motors and the like freeze.

I'm willing to buy almost any well-designed premise, but I insist on the laws of physics remaining the same.

I don't know, I could see some situations (attack on laws of physics by magical forces, impingement of another dimension with different physical laws) doing some things along those lines. But you can't mess too much with the way basic electrical and mechanical forces work or it would make human and animal biology impossible as well.