@Kylopod said:

Now, what baffles me is, if we audience can see/feel the difference, why can't the writers/actors? We seem to know what we like, why don't they?

I think the root of the problem is that the show’s premise was limited from the start, preventing the plot from having a forward orientation. A lot of zombie stories, such as the Romero films or the 28 Days Later series, deal with stages of the apocalypse: we see the gradual breakdown of civilization as the zombie plague spreads and increasingly cannot be contained by military forces. TWD skipped over all that and started at the end, after society has already all but collapsed. That’s part of what made the series intriguing at first.

The problem is that there wasn’t much room for the story to grow from there. The end of the first season pretty much put an end to any possibility of the characters finding a cure to the zombie plague, and apart from the predictable fake-out with Eugene in a later season, it never pursued that path again. The show also has consistently avoided any implication that the walkers contain traces of the people they once were. They are, for all intents and purposes, just a dangerous natural force like a storm or a fire.

So all that was left to do was have the main characters look for places to settle down and deal with the sociopaths who prowl the area when there’s no central government to protect people against them. That’s a fairly limited setup, and in a way the series deserves praise for how much it was able to get out of this premise and for as long as it did. But it made the show’s writers desperate to be constantly upping the ante, making the situations increasingly outrageous so that the story didn’t simply go in circles. It makes me wonder how the series will ever reach a satisfying conclusion.

I don't necessarily disagree with what you're saying but I would take issue, and rather strongly, with the idea that TWD was limited by its premise. Zombies are the great metaphorical monster; one can use them to tell just about any kind of story that can be told. TWD has been such a mess for most of its run because it didn't have talented people on the creative side who could use that premise. You note that the series avoids the idea that any trace of humanity remains in the zombies but that wasn't always the case; under Frank Darabont, they did retain pieces of who they once were. Morgan's wife tried to return home every night. Zombies as twisted reflections of humans is an extremely important feature of zombie fiction. Taking that away can kill much of what makes them so interesting but after Darabont was fired, that angle was entirely dropped and the critters became just as you described.

Which sort of brings me back to my own point: the show's writers lack the talent to do competent zombie fiction. In comic form, TWD is a character-study, an almost anthropological look at the long-term effects of the zombified world on a group of ordinary people who manage to survive it. TWD's writers entirely stripped away this element and rebuilt the show on a soap melodrama model, with what passes for "characterization" dictated entirely by momentary plot needs, frequently changing in radical ways and on a dime because the way in which such a project seeks to interact with viewers is to try to provoke emotional responses rather than create strongly-conceptualized characters and use them for drama. We've had, to date, something like 11 entirely different versions of Rick, none of them flowing from the previous ones. The writers just decide they're going to tell a particular story and the characters get whatever personality transplant is necessary to tell that story. But TWD is a story of survival. There's no end to this situation, no cure, no ultimate villain to defeat and when you strip away characterization in this way, when the project isn't about creating interesting characters and charting how they change over time, there's really nothing left. It just becomes a series of increasingly-similar mechanical actions, just as you describe. I've written about this same problem for years: http://cinemarchaeologist.blogspot.com/2013/11/walking-dead-34.html

TWD can't succeed because of this failure at the conceptual level. Its writers aren't talented people and don't even really seem to care about their work (the premise sells the show, so why bother putting in any real work when people will just watch whatever crap you churn out?). But that's no failing of the zombie premise.

@jriddle73 said:

You note that the series avoids the idea that any trace of humanity remains in the zombies but that wasn't always the case; under Frank Darabont, they did retain pieces of who they once were. Morgan's wife tried to return home every night. Zombies as twisted reflections of humans is an extremely important feature of zombie fiction. Taking that away can kill much of what makes them so interesting but after Darabont was fired, that angle was entirely dropped and the critters became just as you described.

Yes!

Which sort of brings me back to my own point: the show's writers lack the talent to do competent zombie fiction. In comic form, TWD is a character-study, an almost anthropological look at the long-term effects of the zombified world on a group of ordinary people who manage to survive it. TWD's writers entirely stripped away this element and rebuilt the show on a soap melodrama model, with what passes for "characterization" dictated entirely by momentary plot needs, frequently changing in radical ways and on a dime because the way in which such a project seeks to interact with viewers is to try to provoke emotional responses rather than create strongly-conceptualized characters and use them for drama. We've had, to date, something like 11 entirely different versions of Rick, none of them flowing from the previous ones. The writers just decide they're going to tell a particular story and the characters get whatever personality transplant is necessary to tell that story. But TWD is a story of survival. There's no end to this situation, no cure, no ultimate villain to defeat and when you strip away characterization in this way, when the project isn't about creating interesting characters and charting how they change over time, there's really nothing left. It just becomes a series of increasingly-similar mechanical actions, just as you describe.

I've written about this same problem for years: http://cinemarchaeologist.blogspot.com/2013/11/walking-dead-34.html

Another great post in a highly enlightening thread!

@jonnieblack said:

You said it perfectly. I agree it was some time in season 7. If you forced me to pick a moment, it would be the fight with the spiked walker at the garbage patch kids lair. I was like, WTF is this crap?

By that point, the show had been gone for years; that was just an indication of how far it had gone. The Garbage People lived in a fantasy garbage dump that, though previously unknown by anyone, stretched all the way to the horizon, they looked like characters from a Mad Max movie and they even spoke a special clipped language, as if they'd grown up in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust where common English had undergone a radical transformation, even though it's less than 2 years into this particular one. This was TWD again imitating Z NATION, which TWD began to do practically as soon as ZN appeared. Carol's wonderful personality transplant in the last few eps of season 5, Daryl's liquidation of the initial Savior bikers, the carnival-overrun-by-zombies and "zombie lawnmower" sequences from last season--all of this (and plenty more) is Z NATION. Completely out of character for TWD as it had existed up to then. But these are also the only things that have made TWD remotely entertaining over all that time. The "zombie lawnmower" thing was hysterically funny, and the single best moment on the show since the season 5 opener. It's phoned in from an entirely different show but that show is better. This doesn't always work (because TWD's writers aren't as good as ZN's); the ep where Rick and Daryl chased Jesus around the countryside was meant to have that kind of feel to it but mostly fell flat.

While this sort of thing can definitely be seen as indicative of TWD in decline--shot writers looking around for things to rip off--it has also significantly improved the show. It's everything else on TWD that is the real problem.

I'm loving this thread, thanks y'all, for your insights.

Not to interrupt (keep'em coming!) but I've also asked for some literary muscle the other way - let's balance the hate with some love, and break down seasons, episodes and/or scenes that were TWD masterpieces!

See We're taking it back, elevating the conversation!

SPOILERS:

Beth's death...when her body hit the ground with a thud, you could hear the splash of water-skis sticking a perfect landing.

Terminus, with Rick, Glen, etc. at the trough about to be slaughtered. One of the most intense scenes on any show ever. I literally could not breathe.

@Kylopod said:

I think the root of the problem is that the show’s premise was limited from the start, preventing the plot from having a forward orientation. ...

The problem is that there wasn’t much room for the story to grow from there......

So all that was left to do was have the main characters look for places to settle down and deal with the sociopaths who prowl the area when there’s no central government to protect people against them. That’s a fairly limited setup ...

I agree wholeheartedly with you. In truth, I think it is also the problem too many shows have. Some ideas are "groundbreaking" enough to carry a season or two - stretching them out for financial gain is killing television.

@DRDMovieMusings said:

I'm loving this thread, thanks y'all, for your insights.

Not to interrupt (keep'em coming!) but I've also asked for some literary muscle the other way - let's balance the hate with some love, and break down shttps://moviechat.org/tt1520211/The-Walking-Dead/5a0874c7eff27b00128bd996/Wow-has-this-show-jumped-the-shark?reply=5a09223c45325c0012958a2aeasons, episodes and/or scenes that were TWD masterpieces!

See We're taking it back, elevating the conversation!

The scene that hooked me was the last scene in the first episode - Rick in the military tank surrounded by walkers!

**and when Rick is under the bed when one of "Joe's men of the Claimers" lays on top

**

THE RICKSTER BRINGS IT TO ME

@PANDJY said:

@Kylopod said:

stretching them out for financial gain is killing television.

Amen. And Amen. I said the same thing recently about The Simpsons.

One of my favourite scenes in the history of film has got to be the barn storm scene, season 5, episode 10, "Them".

I break down what makes it so powerful over in the thread We're taking it back, elevating the conversation!.

The Grove.

@NotoriousRio said:

I'm sure many will say Glen under the dumpster

I certainly would. I mean yeah, I've read the other replies about Terminus, but I could forgive most of TWD's silly story points up until Dumpstergate. And season 7 started off really strong too, but after that dumpster scene the whole show just took a huge nosedive right after that and still hasn't recovered.

And to make matters worse I've read the comics, they've made nothing but bad choices in translating certain key story arcs and moments to live action (even the most recent death of Sheba wasn't nearly as impactful as it was in the comic).

And I don't mean they should translate the comic to screen verbatim, there's tons of room for improvement and innovation from the comics, but the writers are just make stupid choices that make the characters look like idiots. People who have survived this long shouldn't be this dumb.

@Raymondoz2007 said:

The Grove.

Sad episode. But very powerful. Yep, episodes such as this one remind us of the good ol' days.

even the most recent death of Sheba wasn't nearly as impactful as it was in the comic

As a non-comic reader, it just felt to me like the silly death of a silly character I didn’t care about. Back when Carol first meets the “king” in the last season, her baffled reaction, where she scarcely can believe this guy is for real, seemed like she was channeling the feelings of the audience.

I usually surf the web. I like to read folks feedbacks & reactions and I noticed that Dumpstergate was the beginning of the decline. Glenn should have died cause then no one would have saw it coming. Which would mean, they weren't following the comic verbatim which now seems to be the case.