Episode 20: The Zombie Show Is A Zombie Itself

  If you've been on this planet for any considerable amount of time, you've heard of a show called The Walking Dead, or TWD for short. For a good while, TWD was the #1 show on television. Millions tuned in to see a cop and his allies navigate a world overtaken by reanimated corpses, trying to survive these zombies as well as other human beings. The show is still running as of the writing of this blog - in fact it is currently airing its eleventh and final season. So why am I calling the zombie show a zombie? SPOILERS BELOW, OBVIOUSLY.

A guy gets his head bashed in

   In the Season 7 premiere, TWD did something very controversial. Glenn, a beloved, fan-favorite character who had been on the show since the beginning, got brutally murdered in front of his sick, pregnant wife, and several of his friends. Right after he had to watch one of his friends get his head bashed in (RIP Abraham as well), he got his head bashed in too. The heads of both Abraham and Glenn were reduced to red mush by swings of a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire, swung by the show's new villain, a charismatic guy named Negan, played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan (who also played the dad in Supernatural).

   While people were upset about Abraham, too, people were far more upset about Glenn. Many argued that Glenn's death was too far, and the follow episodes showed a sharp decline in viewership. People didn't wanna keep watching without Glenn.

Characters keep leaving!

   Glenn wasn't the last major character to leave and cause people to lose interest in the show. In Season 8, Carl Grimes, son of main character Rick Grimes, died.

   At the end of Season 8, Morgan, another character who had been in since the beginning, decided to leave, and he became the main character of the spin-off series, Fear The Walking Dead. Also at the end of Season 8, Dwight is exiled by Daryl, and he too ends up in Fear The Walking Dead.

   In Season 9, Rick himself got injured and taken away to a mysterious community by helicopter. Maggie left too, but came back later.

   In Season 10, Rick's wife and the mother of his new son (RJ), Michonne, left to go look for him.

   The only characters left of the iconic Grimes family are Judith Grimes and RJ Grimes, and we barely ever see RJ considering he's just a little boy. Thankfully, they are positioning Judith to be the future of the world as she's around 12 now (I think), and is already a proven warrior.

    Needless to say, several character exits have turned people off of the show.

Milking the cash cow dry

  Despite its sharply declined viewership, TWD is still the AMC network's big cash cow. Once Better Call Saul ends with its upcoming sixth and final season, TWD and FTWD will pretty much be all AMC has. They know this. So, they're milking the franchise. Even though TWD itself is coming to an end, FTWD will keep going (as of now), they also did a second mini spinoff that's already ended, and have confirmed at least three future spin-offs.

   I say just let it end. All good things have to end eventually. Just give TWD a good finale and let things be. Spin-off after spin-off is only going to taunt the show's legacy and oversaturate it.

   I say I'm not going to watch these spin-off shows, but at the end of the day I know I probably will. I'm a completionist like that. But I still don't think they should happen.

Wash, rinse, repeat

   Another major complaint people have about TWD is its very formulaic structure. Since Season 3, the show has worked like this:

-Group encounters new villainous/rival group.

-Enemy group kills or otherwise harms a major character, or multiple major characters.

-Group goes to war with enemy group.

-Group wins.

-Repeat.

    I won't go into the specifics of each cycle that has happened, but those who have watched the show should know exactly what I mean.

In Conclusion

   You may think that with all the things I've just said I must not like the show. On the contrary; I love it. I have never stopped loving it. But I can see the flaws and can understand why people have stopped loving it. I still watch the new episodes every Sunday night and will keep doing so until the show ends.

See you next week!