i am sure you are correct on how people react. the issue for tv series, movies etc. is they have to try to increase the tension. everyone knows you dont go down into the basement, but hey that would be kinda boring would it not? they want the audience mentally screaming, what the hell are you doing? its a tv/movie trick to engage you in a WTF moment.
as for the anti gun message i have to disagree. im a long time zombie fanatica as is my missus (you are reading a post by someone who watched nazi zombies at the centre of the earth LOL, and before you ask, no its not good). I am not trying to insult your intelligence, but in the ‘zombie’ universe, there are some rules. one of them is that no matter what you think, guns matter but they are a double edged sword. they ‘sort out’ the current threat but act as a beacon to other zombies, along with bright lights (something the FTWD enclave is sure to learn soon). also no ammuniton is being made and as a result there is simply not enough bullets to sort out the zombie plague. so sparingly use your weapons until you have no choice and where possible use melee weapons due to the lack of noise. also you constantly hunt for 4 things 1. food, 2. weapons, ammunition, 3. a safe place 4.threats. that order changes depending on the availability of other ‘things’.
i honestly dont see the anti gun message you mentioned, and before you ask, i always watch for them (its a real pet hate of mine coming from a country that has all but banned them) in fact if anything there is a completely different message that forces people to accept them for what they are, a vital tool. In the TWD universe there is a fairly constant message: anyone trying to take away your weapons has alterior motives, see ‘the govenor’. the govenor was banning weapons in the town he ran (that is a clear message security for freedom and it showed a lot of people will accept that) and the result of that is it never ever ends well. Dale the anti gun liberal guy (as mentioned) was eaten and badly. Herschel let people stay on his farm (his property his rules) and wanted the guns secured and was shown the error in that thinking. the armed groups Herschel and Rick met also showed that the real threat is other people and if you dont defend yourself no one will. you have also seen anyone who wont deal with a threat it comes back to bite them in the ass. the group who resorted to cannibalism also learned the weapons message as did Rick when he killed the leader with a blade and the comment ‘dont want to waste bullets’. the clear message of TWD is its better to have and not use then to need and not have.
The current message in FTWD (remember this is merely weeks into the disaster) is that even saviours (i.e. the troops) are in a position of power with weapons, especially when you are unarmed. Also the clear message is you are very vulnerable to loosing your freedom and life if you choose to ignore weapons and personal defense.
the truly sad part of all the TWD is the search for a real sanctuary. they want life as it was, but that is not possible its an illusion. There is no place safe. its an obvious message to the current world. just becasue you think its safe, doesnt mean it is, because below the surface of civility, people will resort to a hammer (see the wife in the FTWD episode with the neighbour) if necessary.
In TWD the only people who have survived are ones that have accepted that he who is not armed is doomed. the constant beat of TWD is a search for weapons and ammunition. Rick drove through 30-50 miles of zombie infestation leaving a hiker to die to pick them up. There is a constant search for ammunition shown and more often implied (counting rounds, counting magazines etc etc). In the last series of TWD Rick even hides a gun as he knows the new town he will reside in will no doubt lock their weapons up. You also see Carol stealing them from the lockers. Again this is a clear message of what is going to happen to this town, its doomed. Ask any TWDer (and i suspect yourself from what you have posted) what will happen here and you will hear disaster. The clear message of TWD is you are ultimately going to survive as part of a group that defends itself but also you have to be aware that at some point you are on your own. it also shows dictaroship doesnt work (see ricks time and the govenor). the peace they had in the prison was with an elected council and everyone armed...all the time. if you are on your own with no weapon, you are not long before you are walker food. the most recent example is the ‘red shirt’ guy who was killed by ‘the wolves’.
Imagine (so basically ignore 80% of your brain) you are a anti gunner, lefty watching this series. it must be a nightmare of freddy krueger proportions for them. the mental gymastics for those people is enormous. I can only ask you to trust me on this as i work with some who ‘were’ anti gun (totally and completely) until this series. it has forced them to accept some uncomfortable truths. their arguement that its just a tv series is answered by me...is it? what if you are in your house and a ‘zombie’ is breaking in and doesnt care if you are there or not, who knows the police are 30 minutes away...what do you do? its forcing people to ask themselves tough questions and i think you might be surprised by the lefty answers in some cases— of course not all, see about loosing 80% of your brain and they are leftys after all!
so is it real, nope, is it as pro gun as it should be, probably not but its just a tv series and you and I can exercise our rights not to watch it and see in all its glory, true market forces at work. no one watching will kill this series. if they were to dump weapons in TWD the believability factor would collaspe as would the series.
in FTWD you have the early stages of the disaster. I think it is showing 2 things. You can dislike guns all you like (see Travis’ comment) or you can adapt like the barber, ‘a gun doesnt care if you like it or not’ and his views that the military wont be able to stem the tide. It clearly shows, if you dont have a weapon, you are in serious trouble. the second issue is civilisation, more on this below.
the TWD franchise is in a unique place in TV. They are showing at the most basic level what people good and bad will do to survive, and the answer is in, they will do anything. they will murder, rape, even eat people to survive and you (i.e. normal people) as best represented by Rick in TWD will bite the neck out of an assailant if your family is threatened. What we will see (at least i hope we willsee) in FTWD is the transformation of a classic liberal, green, modern multi parent west coat family realise that they too will have to learn what the world is...not what they want it to be. I realise you might not like it (LOL fairly sure you dont judging by your posts) but it does show how quickly ‘civilisation’ will collaspe. its forcing one question on everyone: how can civillisation collapse so fast — unless it wasnt as civil as you were lead to believe. thats the message...and the next one is : now that you and yours are on their own, how far are you prepared to go to defend them and yorself. you will see this answered with Travis (the anti gun guy), he has 2 choices: get eaten or fight back, i guess we will see the answer to that particular gun question by next week.
Anyways just MHO and thanks for the red flag on weapons, its good (and i am not trying to me smart or smarmy) to have it questioned...and regularly...
I think your points are dead on.
With all that said, I have a lot of negatives about "Fear" as a TV show: A) For a short season TV series it was slow and boring wasting limited time available for "character building" scenes that did not build any character. B) The staging of the show is sloppy - they forget details for example: leaving the school without the canned food (I think they forgot to film it) or closing the gate behind them as they leave the safe zone in secret. You may imply that they closed the gate behind but we don't see it and hence they doomed their neighbors to zombies walking right in. C) They make characters stupid on purpose - Travis was the first to investigate the zombie outbreak at the church and the mom was in denial but then Travis went into denial and the mom of the drug addict became the one "aware" of zombies. D) The portrayal of the military is unrealistic. In zombie fiction the military usually is to blame or responsible for the outbreak but it has become a cliche. In the book World War Z they present the military in a better light against zombies - the military failing because they fight zombies as if they were a human army and don't bring the right weapons to the fight. But the military learns and wins. Now, we can't have the military winning on this TV show - but we need not make them the bad guys. D) The protagonists of "Fear" are all unlikable. I don't understand why they could not make us like them right away. It's not unusual. In Breaking Bad, as a viewer I instantly cared for everyone on the show as soon as they were introduced. What I mean is I found them interesting (aka likable). From what I could tell from online comments - no one likes or identifies with the "Fear" characters.