Vampires and lovers and zombies, oh my!

Fall TV is finally starting to come back into full swing. Tonight Showtime's The Affair returns, FX's The Strain finales, and it's the final episode of Fear the Walking Dead.

My husband and I have been waiting for The Walking Dead to return, but in the meantime AMC has been filling the void with the six-episode spinoff series, Fear the Walking Dead.

Which is, unfortunately, terrible. The show follows a blended family - mom, drug-addict son, "good" daughter, stepdad, his ex-wife, his sullen son - living in East LA as the zombie apocalypse causes the collapse of civilization as we know it. It could be a fascinating premise; as an Angeleno for over a decade, I was initially interested to see what fault lines the city would fall apart along first. Would race or class provide greater division? Would neighborhoods with strong cultural identities pull together or tear themselves apart? Would money buy safety or cease holding value entirely?

But the show has chosen not to address any of these issues at all. Instead we follow this one unremarkable, unlikeable family as they discover zombies, and then huddle in their neighborhood, cordoned off into a safe zone by a protective military presence. They are told the rest of the city is dead, but we don't see it. I'm not expecting waves of zombies, but there are more than 3 million people in LA. Dead or alive, where did they all go?

And frankly, living here, you get a feel for the city. I'm not saying it's right, but I find it hard to believe that when civilization collapsed, we sent the Army to protect... Boyle Heights?

Anyway, if you need a zombie fix to end your weekend, go with a classic like Dawn of the Dead. Or Shaun of the Dead. Or just make your roommates stagger around groaning "braaaaaains". It'll still be more entertaining than this show.