The second season of AMC's zombie spin-off/prequel picks up shortly after the first left off, with our heroes desperately trying to escape a walker-ravaged LA with the help of the mysterious and enigmatic Strand and his luxury yacht the Abigail.

In its first season, Fear the Walking Dead attempted to offer audiences something different to The Walking Dead, depicting the zombie apocalypse as it first begins to take hold. The show offered a slow-burn beginning, establishing a fractured family dynamic and presenting plenty of effectively creepy foreshadowing.

Sadly, many of the central characters weren't particularly interesting, and the series shot itself in the foot with a baffling time-jump that skipped over weeks' worth of the most potentially interesting material. A different setting aside – LA's orange-hued cityscape over verdant Georgian forests – it often failed to justify itself.

AMC

Coming into season two, there's an immediate sense that Fear might be ready to step up and step out of The Walking Dead's shadow. In fact, given the parent series' infuriating decision-making of late, all Fear really needs to do is not alienate its audience with transparent manipulation tactics and fans should flock to it!

After a rousing opening, in which the survivors fend off a walker attack on the beach as they wait for a dinghy to take them to the safety of the Abigail, the series sets out to give us something that we haven't seen very often: a maritime zombie story. As the Abigail sails out to sea, the characters look back at the city and watch it burn.

Richard Foreman, Jr AMC

Fear the Walking Dead season 2: Gale Ann Hurd promises new threats, twists and crossovers

The devastation that has come to Los Angeles hits them hard and Paul Haslinger's supremely effective score underpins the gravity of what they're seeing. It's not just the destruction of their home that they're seeing in the flames – it's the downfall of their entire way of life; of civilisation at large. That's a heavy note to start the season on, and director Adam Davidson wrings it for all its worth.

Having bid goodbye to life as they know it, we're faced with the prospect of an entire season – perhaps longer – with our heroes out on the Pacific. Any worries that this might sap the series of drama are instantly dispelled by a compelling first episode, in which potential avenues for incidents are well-established. It's no time at all before the group find a raft of survivors – but ruthless Strand refuses to stop and help them, which puts family man Travis (Cliff Curtis) at odds with his more compassionate wife Madison (Kim Dickens).

Richard Foreman, Jr AMC

This first episode neatly reinforces the friction that exists within the core family, and highlights the potential drama to come as a result of having everyone living in such close quarters. There's not a huge amount of plot here, perhaps understandably for a season opener, but it's still an hour that passes by faster than any from the first run of episodes.

Travis and Madison ponder how much they can trust Strand; Chris deals with the death of his mother; Alicia makes a friend on the radio; and Daniel Salazer, err, goes fishing. But don't worry – there's still time to shred a zombie's head with a speedboat propeller as well.

And even simply having such a different aesthetic this season is a breath of fresh sea air. So many series' are dark and grim, but it's difficult to shoot life on a yacht off the coast of LA without things being bright and beautiful and the ever-present blue – be it the sky above or the sea below – makes for a show with a unique look to it, particularly for a post-apocalyptic story.

Richard Foreman AMC

While the core families and their relationships are fairly well-established by now – the characters are far better developed than almost anyone in The Walking Dead was at this point – it's still Ruben Blades as enigmatic and grizzled former-torturer Daniel Salazar and Colman Domingo as the slick and inscrutable Strand that are the clear standouts.

Cliff Curtis and Kim Dickens are strong performers, but their characters often struggle to captivate. At least the younger figures are somewhat less irritating than before, with Frank Dillane more restrained now that Nick is over his addiction, although the writers need to rethink Chris' surly teenager routine fast.

It's a common point that's raised when discussing zombie fiction that characters "should just get on a boat", but it rarely happens on screen. Here that's exactly what our heroes have done, and Fear seems determined to shut down that survival tactic by making life on the high seas as difficult as possible.

Richard Foreman AMC

Out on the ocean, there's always the implication of danger. Not only do they have other seaward survivors to navigate, trips to shore for supply runs to consider, and potential pirates prowling the coast to dodge, but we also find out an answer to perhaps the most important issue of all: can zombies swim?

This is a refreshing and promising opener to a series that isn't without its faults, but that just might achieve that rarest of things: giving us an effective new spin on the zombie apocalypse.

Fear the Walking Dead airs Mondays at 9pm on AMC exclusive to BT.

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