I think a show set in the future would be even worse tbh, and much less fresh and relatable. FTWD's problem simply comes down to awful writing.
This week's episode was a slight improvement, but when the girl was in the elevator shaft with the walkers coming after her, and also when she was backed up against the glass doors, it highlighted a major problem of the series to me. Unlike TWD, I found myself not caring whether or not she lived. Secondly, at no point did I feel she was in any immediate danger anyway. They haven't really killed any major cast members. The group killed one themselves when they were infected, and that's about it. No emotional investment in characters + no real threat = don't care. And for such a useless group, they're mighty handy with stabbing walkers, much handier than TWD. It makes no sense. In this episode alone we had the two kids handling walkers no problem at all. Where's the progression and character development from every day person to zombie killer?
Also, introducing even more generic human bad guys. As soon as you see some new people, you're just like "yep, they're going to be bad guys". It's so tired and cheesy.
They've completely defeated the purpose of placing this show at the start of the apocalypse, because it's fallen back into bad habits, but without setting anything up worth a damn first. It didn't show the decay of society in a believable way, it hasn't shown the characters adapting in a believable way, it didn't even take the first season to create characters I care to see live.