Blue Sheepdog

Three episodes in and this is already the most unrealistic and completely unbelievable tripe I have seen on TV. ABC must think the whole country (or at least those watching this show) are gullible simpletons. Not only is the majority of the FBI made out to be a bunch of buffoons, but somehow its members are both the heroes and the villains at the same time. As if an agency that is tasked with investigating and preventing the most serious crimes in the nation, an agency with 35,000+ employees who investigate terrorists and other criminals for a living, could possibly have people inside it who pull off the far-fetched plot devices the show uses for its episodes without anyone figuring things out beforehand, or being forced to rely on relatively inexperienced agents to save the day. The FBI is by no means infallible. I know all about Miller, Hanssen, and Pitts. But spying for another country isn’t the same thing as masterminding and pulling off terrorist bombings across the country, especially post-9/11. Especially working for the very agency that dedicates itself to putting a stop to terrorists to begin with. ABC would have been better off with a made-up agency like “24”’s fictitious CTU instead of using the FBI for this show. Most of what takes place in the first few episodes is far too unrealistic to be enjoyable and too outlandish to be believable even for a silly TV show. If this is the best a major network like ABC can offer, it is a sad commentary which speaks volumes about either the poor quality of shows being produced today, or the gullibility and simplemindedness of the audience that enjoys watching something this banal. Maybe both.

When this show first aired, the premise of the show sounded interesting to me and I watched the first few seasons. I liked many of the characters and found some of the first few storylines to be somewhat interesting. However, I became disillusioned about the show for several reasons, the main one being the lack of realism for fundemental actions taken by the characters. For example: It seems that no one, regardless of their skill with a firearm, ever delivers anything but a headshot, regardless of circumstances. Not only during "normal" combat, but while running away, while wounded, while stumping along on an injured leg, hell even out of a speeding vehicle being driven across uneven farmland. That is unrealistic even for professionals who use guns every day, let alone normal people. Another issue is that no matter what happens, hope ALWAYS gets taken away from the group. They are never allowed a meaningful respite from their troubles. Something always comes along to screw up the latest area of safety they have found and it gets exhausting watching them go from major crisis to major crisis without end. It is like the producers of the show don't want us to have any hope for the survivors. All they want is to pound into our heads how pointless the attempt to survive really is and in an offhanded manner, laugh at the futility of even trying. From a realistic standpoint, in the world of TWD, humanity is two short generations from extinction. There is no more industry, no more mass production of food, medicine, clothing, and the other "necessities" we all take for granted in the "normal" world. Humanity, for all intents and purposes is back in the Dark Ages. But instead of eventually giving the characters somplace secure to live and taking the story from the day to day grind of surviving the walkers, to actually rebuilding a life of some sort, the show casually kills off many of the characters who have a chance to maybe give humanity hope for survival. Does your character possess a somewhat decent moral compass? Are they of an age to have children and possibly raise them as the first generation of true survivors in the world of TWD? Too bad, the producers are going to kill you off in another episode or two. Embrace the suck buttercup. And that eventually led me to think, if this is all the show is about, what is the point of watching it anymore? Had AMC decided to make this show a bit more hopeful, perhaps I would have found it to be reasonably enjoyable. As it is, TWD is too dismal, depressing and dark for me to find it a worthwhile expenditure of my leisure time.