The Walking Dead: World Beyond Episode 4 Review: Still Too Slow And Boring Except For One Thing – Forbes

'The Walking Dead: World Beyond' slows down to a glacial pace.

The Walking Dead: World Beyond is shockingly slow and boring for a brand new zombie spinoff of one of the most popular zombie TV shows ever made.

Its unreasonably slow. Its characters are unreasonably dull. Theres still hope that it might pick up its pace and give us something interestingprobably related to one missing Rick Grimesbut the first four episodes dont offer much hope.

For most of The Wrong End Of A Telescope our heroesFelix, Huck, Iris, Hope, Elton and Silaswander around an old high school. The present is intermingled with some flashbacks and at least one clip of Iris imagining what the school must have been like before the world ended.

Iris and Hope have a heart-to-heart and smooth things over. There are several other heart-to-hearts as well, and one mental breakdown courtesy of Silas who almost injures Elton when he tries to stop him from beating a zombie thats already been killed.

Theres also a wolf which provides a kind of interesting obstacle to overcome, or at least one that isnt either a human being or an undead foe. Id like to see more of this kind of thinganimals, natural obstacles and so forth.

Mostly, Id like to see this show actually pick up the pace a little and get to the interesting bits. Granted, it does pick up speed toward the end when Silas freaks out and theres a fair amount of exciting action. But the lulls in actionall the bloody conversationsmake this feel like a zombie show in slow-motion, especially compared to how both The Walking Dead and Fear started out.

Also, whats up with Iris never having had a soda in a can before? Wasnt she like eight or nine when the apocalypse began? Most kids that age have tried soda in a can already. A more appropriate line might have been Its been forever since I had soda in a can.

We also get a bit of a flashback with Hope and Iriss father as hes about to set out to help the CRM. So it was his choice rather than coercion, it appears, unless theres something we dont know (like the CRM threatened to destroy the Campus Colony if he didnt go, though they did that anyways).

This wasnt a totally terrible episode. It has little cheesy bits that annoy me and its too slow by half. And even though its a smaller cast than the other two shows, somehow six main characters still feels like too many. But even still, there are redeeming qualities.

I like Hope a lot. Shes an interesting character who I hope (ahem) gets more front-and-center as the show develops. I like that Silas and Felix both have troubling backstories, though maybe were entering backstory territory too quickly. And I think the production value is all pretty good.

Good zombies, the cinematography is fine, the music can be a bit melodramatic but its fine. The show looks good. It doesnt feel cheap like The Walking Dead felt in Seasons 7 and 8, or washed out like Fear The Walking Dead was in Seasons 4 and 5. If they can just get the story to that level of quality well be on track.

The best part of the episode, of course, was the post-credits scene. If you missed that, you missed the one truly interesting moment. Similar to last weeks final scene between Kublek and Barca, this one is all about the CRM. This time around, we see a scientist observing various test subjects. These are all zombies, and theyre all marked as TS (test subject) AXXX (the letter A followed by several numbers).

This is almost certainly a reference to As and Bs from back in The Walking Deads Jadis storyline. Jadis was trying to get taken to some colony (the CRM secret city) and in order to do that she had to give them somethingand A or a B. It seems that we now know what that means. As are recently turned zombies or recently bitten people(?) that the CRM can study. Bs are living subjects, though whether theyre also to be studied or put to work in labor camps or what remains a mysterya mystery this show might solve, at least in part.

And that, dear readers, is the one truly good reason to keep watching The Walking Dead: World Beyond. Well learn more about the CRM and get some clues as to Ricks fate and whereabouts. In the main Walking Dead show well figure out about a totally separate new community of well-armed, high-tech bad guys. How these two separate, distinct and massive groups will be related (rivals, perhaps?) remains to be seen, but I cant imagine they arent aware of one anothers existence.

What did you make of this episode dear readers? And my apologies for the late review. Think of my tardiness as one piece of the review itself. Im struggling to get through these.

Let me know on Twitter or Facebook.

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The Walking Dead: World Beyond Episode 4 Review: Still Too Slow And Boring Except For One Thing - Forbes

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero