When The Walking Dead premiered on Oct 31, 2010, I was one of the biggest fans and supporters, even though AMC had stolen my idea of making a zombie TV show. But the last 4 seasons have really gone downhill in regards to story, characters, and even production quality, to the point where they’re bleeding viewers week to week. Even as a die-hard fan, I’ve given up on watching this exhaustively bad show. Here’s my 6 reasons why:
- Boring – Above all things, this is the most unforgivable. You have a show… with zombies! The material writes itself. How can you make a show with zombies actually boring? Both critics and fans all agree, The Walking Dead has become a ZZZ-fest: http://variety.com/2018/tv/news/walking-dead-season-8-midseason-premiere-ratings-1202710655/
- Waste of characters – TWD used to be interesting and appealing because its diverse cast and, more importantly, the danger that they were put in. Now, it’s basically down to the same 4 characters who have become walking memes of themselves.
- Special effects – I know that TV shows are trying to save money. But terrible special effects are no excuse. Either do it right, or don’t it at all – it really takes away from the production quality of the show. Here’s just one compilation of terrible special effects on the show (there’s a bunch others on YouTube):
- Story going nowhere/Under-developed universe – With a world taken over by zombies, you would think there would be an unlimited amount of content to cover and places to go, right? Nope. For 8 seasons, Rick’s group hasn’t gone more than 300 miles from their original location. This is a particular reason why the plot, characters, and the entire TWD universe hasn’t gone any where.
- Showrunners don’t know how to run a show – this is the root cause of all these issues. Despite having to adapt Robert Kirkman’s comic series to a TV show (and doing a great job in season 1 and 2), the inexperience of the showrunners are now on full display. The simplest thing the show can do is provide the audience a pay-off point, or at least a reason to keep watching. But every episode seems to be an overindulgence in sadism. I’m tired of watching a boring show only to come to an unsatisfying and depressing conclusion.
- AMC – the hallmark of AMC’s shows are over-dramatization of characters and situations with long, long pauses to eat up air time. I get so frustrated about how AMC does this to all their shows. Worse is how they over-hype their shows, but fail to deliver.
