The Walking Dead: The Show I Love, Yet Dread

*Spoiler Warning from Seasons 1—11 of TWD*

As someone terrible at watching shows (I have finished maybe one or two on my own in their entirety…), I somehow got hooked on The Walking Dead (TWD) during my freshman year of college and have not since let go. With 11 seasons in the main series, 6 spin-off series, almost 10 games, and of course the original comics, TWD is a monster of a franchise. 

While it is “a zombie show,” that was never the true focus of the show, which I appreciated. It does receive a good bit of criticism for that fact; that “its zombies aren’t creating enough survival pressure” or “they aren’t scary enough”, but TWD never intended to be a zombie centric show anyway. In the TWD universe, the zombies are more of a natural disaster crisis than a mystical crisis. Yes, the characters are afraid of the zombies and do have to figure out how they “work”; zombies drive the plot and cause many deaths. However, the show is about the characters. How they cope with a changing world, one that is “dead”, as many characters express.  

So, my gripes are not with the meaning of the show, but rather its production and the end product of many episodes. There are reasons that the fandom jokes of “TWD prime Rick” or “peak seasons” before the show “fell off”, which many agree happens around seasons 7—8 (after season 8/9, I think the show is essentially slop). The biggest things that killed the series for me were the overly repetitive dialogue formats and actions, and the production choices leading to the killing off of major characters that I believe should still be in the show. 

Overly Repetitive Dialogue and Actions

TWD can get boring at times! Think for just a moment about every other modern piece of zombie media. They’re scary and usually fast and strong. But, as I mentioned earlier, the zombies aren’t the focus here; the people are. With such a heavy focus on people, civilization, and socialization, you’d think there would be some heavy-hitting dialogue. And at times, there is, but I do feel that much of the dialogue follows the below format:

I started noticing this pattern and couldn’t let it go. It’s comical now, predicting exactly the direction of a conversation, and now, in the final season, I’ve been able to predict exact dialogue lines before they come out of a character’s mouth. The guy that Daryl meets and is briefly imprisoned by in season 11… super predictable!

Beyond this is the overly repetitive actions. My example is something I’d like to call“the Maggie Stare”. This is defined as when late show Maggie is in Negan’s vicinity and just stares him down and we get a shot of that for several long seconds and then another shot of him looking at her and then sighing/shaking his head. Bear with me; I just think it’s so unfortunate to see such a strong character devolve into “my husband’s dead.”

Now of course, her husband’s murder was tragic and Negan was 100% at fault for it; should my husband be brutally slaughtered in front of me, I would no doubt be quite upset! However, it’s really boring to see this same formula of character interaction over and over again on my screen, especially now that the main characters of the show are entirely absent and we’re left with less plot cohesion and pathways.

Terrible Backstage Decisions

Backstage decisions are vital to a show’s survival; even though this show is based on a comic book, it’ll usually take some creative liberties. For many TWD fans, the death of Carl Grimes was the second major point in which viewership dropped off significantly. Carl is killed off when helping some (at the time) random guy who dies a season and a half later in an equally lame way. The whole thing left fans with a grimace, so when the showrunner, Scott Gimple, cut Carl for creative storytelling purposes, fans were not buying it. 

The death had no build up, practically no payoff, and left the show without one of its main characters. Matters became worse when Rick exited shortly after. And then Michonne. And suddenly we have a season or two of ever-increasing plotlines to try and fill the gaps left by their absences.

When the characters’ development stalls or reverses, the dialogue and scenes become overly predictable, plot pathways constrict, and the “glue” characters are killed off, taken by a helicopter, and following an iphone doodle to who knows where, the viewers notice, and the show suffers. 

Although this show has many plot and production issues that can make it unbearable, it’s dear to me. Is the later seasons’ lack of a coherent plot and memorable characters an issue? Absolutely, but then again, I love my slop zombie show.

• carl grimes
• hcusf
• michonne grimes
• negan smith
• the walking dead
• twd