Just keep flogging that (walking) dead horse...
Remember the first few seasons of The Walking Dead? That was some excellent television.
We had two great actors in Andrew Lincoln and Jon Bernthal involved in a REALLY complicated love triangle, some great background characters, and a really interesting post-apocalyptic world. There were also zombies, which are always a welcome addition to a TV show about zombies.
That was a long time ago though, as complex characters with interesting developments have been replaced by medieval kings with tigers and leather-clad baddies with baseball bats. I'll get to why Negan was wasted on the show later on, but he's only part of a much bigger problem for a show that is already planning an
unnecessary series of movies.
The dialogue is woeful
Can we talk about the dialogue in The Walking Dead, please? Remember that, writers of this show, "talking"?!
You really could sum up about 75% of the conversations with "this is the way things are now," and "we have to change who we are to survive." This eternal struggle of vagueness between being a decent person and bashing people's heads in takes up far too much of the show.
There was one moment in a recent season where Rick was annoying Darryl by playing some crappy country music on the radio. It says a lot that this is the type of moment that stands out as a rare example of believable interactions between two characters.
Plotlines are repetitive
Big bad guy shows up with a gang of nasties. That gang of nasties doesn't like Rick's gang of nasties, so a good two seasons are spent showing how nasty those two gangs of nasties are to each other.
This was still interesting when we had the Governor as the antagonist, but now it's just plain boring. I can't remember the last time the show went in a direction it hadn't gone before, or had a villain that actually did something different.
Negan had the potential to do so, but his bloated storyline and laughable "conclusion" didn't do much to rescue the show. Speaking of Negan, I'll move on to my next point.
Negan was wasted on this show
Jeffrey Dean Morgan is an excellent actor, and did a very good job on the man himself. There were some genuinely tense moments with him in the driving seat, but they were few and far between.
His introduction was one of the best moments of the past few seasons. That said, Glenn's last words of "Maggie, I'll find you..." took any credibility from that season. Right off the bat (pardon the pun), season seven was just as doomed as the ones before it.
I'd hoped his introduction would liven things up, but how much progress was made between seasons seven and eight? It was still billed as Negan vs Rick, and their motivations (whatever they were) hadn't exactly changed very much.
Cool story, needs more tigers
Christ. What I'd give to have been a fly on the wall during the meeting where that was pitched.
Who thought that what this show needed was a tiger-wielding actor posing as a medieval king? Granted, Jerry (the lad with the battleaxe), is one of the better characters on the show. That might have something to do with the fact that they give him actual dialogue...
There are too many useless characters
Who's that guy? Did I miss an episode?
I find myself wondering who half of these people are a lot of the time. Extra characters are slotted in before we've had a chance to understand the old ones, so it's hard to get attached to anyone other than the more developed characters that are left over from the earlier seasons.
Remember Bob? He had his foot cut off and eaten in front of him. I probably was meant to care, but I really didn't. That's an old example, but the show has far too many under-developed characters for us to really care what happens to them.
It's become too violent
No, I don't mean that in a nagging kind of way. Anyone who chooses to watch a show based around a post-apocalyptic world that's riddled with zombies is bound to have a penchant for watching violence.
The problem is, too much of anything really just builds up our tolerance for it. Once you've seen the main character sink his teeth into a man's neck or someone's decapitated head come back to life, it takes a lot to be genuinely shocked.
Violence is most effective on a show when it's used for dramatic effect. Repeatedly making things as disgusting as possible doesn't wash, and The Walking Dead used to be so much better than that.
It doesn't really have a purpose anymore
The revelation that everyone was in fact infected with zombietosis was probably the show's best moment. What did that mean? Will they be able to seek a cure or find some way through the epidemic?
No, we'll just have them run around after various smooth-talking gang leaders and cannibals. The fight for survival can work as a plot line, but surely we've had enough of that at this stage?
It's probably too late for this writer, but a sign that the show would have more direction would have been nice. Ah well, at least the show gave us Merle. We still miss you, big guy...
