It used to be about zombies, now it's just about the drama When this show first came out I was excited. The idea of a zombie-television show to give us many hours of zombie medium rather than just a 2 hour film. The first season was only 6 episodes, but it showed potential. Aswe quickly grew to love some of the characters, and hope for a zombie death for the rest. It was actually nice, rather than watching any other show you knew that the characters you hate really have a good chance of dying. Then came season two, that was so slow and full strange decisions. The only thing that kept me interested was the fact that we did see main characters die. But it quickly became clear that this show had a formula, a somewhat uneven first half of a season and something huge happening in the mid-season finale to keep viewers on their seat. And them an unbearable slow second half that is laying groundwork for the next season, with something happening in the final episode that is supposed to reel viewers back in again. The show is no longer about zombies or lost humans trying to survive, it has become an all-time drama with whiny characters that spend most of the episode like it's a weekly visit with their therapist. All the survivor skills presented in season 1 seem just forgotten. This show is more like The Road, but sometime there is a zombie. There has been some amazing character development among some of the characters, but they are few compared to the rest. TWD has an array of cliché characters, that for some reason are supposed to be taken seriously. One dimensional characters that are no more than cannon fodder. Every single female on the show (Michonne excluded) are introduced as either stupid, incompetent or both. Far be it for me to wonder why writers make sure that they all make decisions with their vagina's, and should only be used as human shields when zombies are coming. Behaviour patterns are questionable, such as bringing kids into a zombie- infested world when you can abort, crashing your car in the middle of an empty road and going off into the woods on your own when you don't have to. Add to that, getting drunk and setting a cabin on fire in the middle of the night, alerting zombies and humans to your location and then hiking through a dark forest full of zombies. Or turning your back on a room with a zombie just so that you can watch pictures on the wall.
For anyone watching the show with their eyes open, or even half open, you can see any event coming for miles. No death is a surprise. Especially colored characters, since as soon as a black person dies another will be added to the group. If by any chance a black person is added before anyone dies, then you know a death is coming. Glenn is the safest character on the show since he is the only Asian. Not to mention Carl or Judith, whom should have died over and over again but the show is to scared to make anything actually realistic.
(I will disregard the idea of "realism" that the show want to portray, since even a reanimated corpse would turn to liquid after a few months and petrol would not work after that same time.) But resorting to the realism that the show want to give a viewer, no one would turn down water or have random hissy fits they way they do. Not wanting to teach the children how to defend themselves, choosing to let enemies live or keep zombies in your barn. Every single bit of drama is so forced, such as not letting Rick stab the dead in the brain in order to have them stay dead. Instead a 20 min conversation with Herchel need to happened in front of people, just to force in tension that isn't there.
The show used to be an actual zombie show, now there are barely any zombies in it. The first season had to be censured because it was to gritty, as off now nothing is censured because nothing is happening. Huge money is spend every episode on zombie makeup, but you rarely see anyone killed by a zombie. Instead we get to enjoy the never ending issues of men pissing in their own turf.
The show is unoriginal. I know it comes as a shock to anyone under 25 but there have been many many many zombie related works over the years. And TWD is just copying all of them. The first episode is a ripoff from 28 days later, the following seasons variations of Romeros work, mostly Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead, and Woodbury + the Governor is pretty much Toy Story 3. TWD prove that with enough money, you can do anything. A show with no plot is pushed out with never ending commercials and follow up talk to explain to the tweens and soccer-moms watching what they just saw. Because the real zombie fans that liked this show from the beginning only watch the season once it out in whole, or have stopped watching all together.