Fear the Walking Dead: The Complete Collection

As a zombie obsessive, I devoured The Walking Dead comics and dutifully collected each issue of the stark black-and-white pages. One issue to the next, I was left eagerly awaiting what would happen to Rick and the gang. Likewise, when the comic became a live-action television phenomenon thanks to Frank Darabont, I purposefully signed up for cable just to get AMC so I wouldn’t miss an episode. Evidently, the series producers and the folks at AMC took notice of the mass following and decided a second show was needed to plug the gaps left open by not having enough televised zombie mayhem. Thus, we have Fear the Walking Dead... for better or worse.

And like its older sister series, Fear the Walking Dead started out great with a unique perspective of events. Focusing on a small family unit with Cliff Curtis and Kim Dickens and their blended families surviving the initial outbreak in Los Angeles, we got something interesting and different enough from Rick’s clan and the carnage of Atlanta to enjoy. It looked different, felt different, but played with similar themes enough that you could enjoy these tangential series side-by-side. For a while anyway. 

The story of the ups and downs of Fear the Walking Dead is very much the same as the primary series. When it was on a high like Seasons One, Two, Three, and Six, it’d strike stretches of frustrating mediocrity with some pretty severely bad seasons (Seasons Five and Seven if you really need to know), before it would claw its way to a fitting if not quite entirely satisfying final Eighth season. 

My issues with this show were the same I had with the original television series and by extension, the comic books that spawned all of them. Eventually, you just want these stories to wrap themselves up. Fear the Walking Dead never should have been a recurring multi-season series, it should have stayed as a limited event run. Since it more or less did this anyway, it could have rebooted itself with a different cast, different location, and a different human vs human vs zombie dilemma, but it needed to not strain so hard to connect all of these stories, locations, and characters. Considering how many main characters come and go and then come back again several episodes later, it all just got too complicated. 

While I would have loved for the series to have remained strictly focused on Kim Dickens, Ruben Blades, Frank Dillane, and Cliff Curtis for the first seasons, the show eventually worked in some heavy-hitter character actors. Colman Domingo dominated the series as Victor Strand featured in more episodes than any other actor. Danny Garcia as Luciana was a consistent saving grace. Any time you get Garret Dillahunt in front of the camera is a good day, and his John Dorie had a hell of an arc. It was wild to see someone as funny as Mo Collins go dark and gritty, but she enjoyed a solid turn as Sarah. Then of course we have the main series story standout Lennie James’ Morgan Jones elevated to series regular for this series. 

Far from perfect (arguably very far for some of the middle seasons), Fear the Walking Dead along with The Walking Dead proper were entertaining runs. I’d stepped away from each series early but came back to them during the Pandemic since I wasn’t doing much else besides taking care of my newborn son. I gritted my way through the dull patches and go-nowhere stories and in the end, was rewarded with some solid human on human on zombie carnage. The funny thing is now AMC seems to be on the true right track with the various IP spinoffs and keeping them to short 6-episode runs that feel like they have an endpoint in sight. Can’t help but wonder how much better Fear the Walking Dead would have turned out had it been kept to a short complete run, rather than finding odd ways to stretch the story out. 

Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-ray 
Fear the Walking Dead rises from the grave to feast on our wallets for a 30-disc Blu-ray + Digital collection. All 113 episodes of the series running over 85 hours are spread across the 30 Region A BD50 discs. The discs are repackages of the previous sets, so if you bought the series one season run at a time, you’re all set. The key difference here is the digital code unlocks the entire series and the discs are housed in the oversized Scanovo megapacks so at any given time two-to-three discs are stacked on the individual spindles and can be a tad cumbersome to remove for easy viewing if you’re not careful.

Maintaining the 1.78:1 1080p presence from one season to the next, the visual aptitude of each episode also shifts. As the series progresses and changes locations, I felt like how well the discs handled fine details, colors, black levels and so forth also shifted. Generally, each season looks great but the occasional visual anomaly would crop up and pull it back a tad. My lingering issue was video noise that would become notably stronger and more pronounced during dark scenes - which there’s a lot because this is a creepy Zombie horror show. When it’s at its best, fine lines and clean details shine through beautifully with plenty of appreciation time for gore and viscera. With that, I can’t help but notice that by sampling an episode from each disc, the show makes a better impression on Blu-ray as the series goes on. So Season One and Two might start out as respectable 3.5/5 video experiences, by the show's end we’re at a strong 4/5 per episode. 

Like the video, the series maintains a strong Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track through each episode. As an action-heavy series, there’s plenty of surround activity to give your setup a nice little workout from one episode to the next. I especially loved the sound design for the first season with the normal loud world before the fall gradually giving way to the creepy quiet of anarchy. And then the creepy groans of the undead start echoing around. It’s good stuff. The later seasons do a better job at checking the basic boxes, more or less, but they are richer and more satisfying auditory experiences to enjoy.

Well, you can’t say there aren’t bonus features because collectively there are a LOT of them! Well, at least there are a lot of audio commentaries. The featurettes are rather brief, and as the series moved on they were sidelined for specific episode commentaries. Featuring various cast, crew, and the showrunners, they’re lively discussions and offer a measure of insight into the storytelling process and execution of the series… even for the rough years. 

Season One:

• A Look at the Series
• Inside the Characters of Fear the Walking Dead

Season Two:

• Audio Commentary “Monster”
• Audio Commentary “We All Fall Down”
• Audio Commentary “Ouroboros”
• Audio Commentary “Blood in the Streets”
• Audio Commentary “Captive”
• Audio Commentary “Sicut Cervus”
• Audio Commentary “Shiva”
• Deleted Scenes
• Flight 462 Webisodes
• Q&A with Cast and Creative Team Playfest 2016
• Inside Fear the Walking Dead
• The Making of Fear the Walking Dead

Season Three:

• Audio Commentary “Eye of the Beholder”
• Audio Commentary “Children of Wrath”
• Audio Commentary “Sleigh Ride”
• Deleted and Extended Scenes

Season Four:

• Audio Commentary “What’s Your Story”
• Audio Commentary “Laura”
• Audio Commentary “Close Your Eyes”
• Audio Commentary “...I Lose Myself”

Season Five:

• Audio Commentary “Humbug’s Gulch”
• Audio Commentary “210 Words Per Minute”
• Audio Commentary “Nar Tamid”

Season Six:

• Audio Commentary “The End is the Beginning”
• Audio Commentary “In Dreams”
• Audio Commentary “J.D.”
• Audio Commentary “The Beginning”

Season Seven:

• Audio Commentary “The Beacon”
• Audio Commentary “Cindy Hawkins”
• Audio Commentary “Gone”

Season Eight:

• Audio Commentary “Remember What They Took From You”
• Audio Commentary “All I See Is Red”
• Audio Commentary “All I See Is Red”
• Audio Commentary “The Road Ahead”

The Walking Dead definitely wasn’t perfect. Fear the Walking Dead certainly had its own issues to contend with. Both series suffered from an aimlessness that’d crop up from one season to the next as each respective series struggled to figure out where it was going. Fear the Walking Dead started out strong as we saw humanity endure the fall of civilization, but then it started moving around the country, adding characters at random, and sacrificing others even more randomly, it got to be too much plot for little reward. But, at least the zombies were fun! The show’s dramatic standing might not hold up, but there are plenty of gnarly festering hoards of the undead to enjoy! Now thanks to Lionsgate we can enjoy all 113 episodes of the series again. Combining all previously issued discs, we're not really getting anything new here outside of convenience and oversized packaging. Overall the show is an enjoyable run, even if The Walking Dead franchise is now finally on the right track with the spinoff shows offering shorter episode runs and a focused idea of where each story is going. If you’re a fan of this series looking to own the run in a single shot, consider this set a solid option. If you're only a causal enjoyer of flesh-eating undead, this series is a stretch to see through to the end. Ultimately, this one is For Fans Only