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Nerdarchy > Film, TV and Video  > The Walking Dead: What’s wrong with Season 7?

The Walking Dead: What’s wrong with Season 7?

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The Walking Dead

Negan lines up potential victims at the end of Season 6 of AMC’s The Walking Dead.

If you’re a fan of The Walking Dead television show and you pay attention to entertainment news, it will come as no surprise the program’s ratings have been dropping like zombies beneath a hail of machine-gun fire. In all fairness, the show is still pulling in more than 10 million viewers, most of whom are from the 18 to 49 demographic, but still, its numbers are dropping.

The big question is whether or not this decline will continue or if it’s just a temporary bump in the road. With the show recently having completed its Season 7 mid-season finale, only time will tell.

Again, if you read entertainment news, it seems a lot of people have opinions on why The Walking Dead isn’t going along as strong as it has in the past. Having watched the show since its beginning, and before that having been a fan of the original graphic novels, I have my own ideas, and I thought I’d outline them below.

The Walking Dead — The Past

TV

Rick Grimes showing his tougher side.

First of all, the show always has suffered from mixed writing. Some episodes, and seasons, are excellent, giving viewers possibly the best TV has to offer, but other episodes and seasons, not so much. The Walking Dead has tended to drag some seasons, especially during the early years, with characters doing little more than walking through the woods while bemoaning their fates for episode after episode. Thankfully the show has mostly gotten beyond that, but still there’s the occasional episode where not a whole lot happens to push the plot forward, though there might be some character growth.

From a more subjective point of view, I personally feel The Walking Dead has suffered in decisions about how certain characters are portrayed. I do not know if these choices were made by the writers, the directors, producers, or by the actors involved, but I believe there have been more than a few mistakes made in this area.

For instance, since day one I have had some problems with how Andrew Lincoln portrays Rick Grimes, seemingly the main character of the series. Please don’t misunderstand as I think Andrew is a fine actor and is generally doing an excellent job with his character, but his version of Rick Grimes keeps going back and forth between being some apocalyptic tough guy and a broken man who seems ready to break into tears at any moment. There’s nothing wrong with this type of character arc, and I can appreciate it, but it’s one we have seen far too many times with Rick. It’s way past time Lincoln’s Rick made up his mind what kind of person he is going to be so we, as the viewers, can move on with the larger story and Grimes can grow more as a character and in different ways.

Related to this issue is my perception that the Rick Grimes character from the graphic novels would chew up and spit out Lincoln’s Grimes without a second thought or look back. I don’t want the television show to be the same as the graphic novels, for then there would be no surprises and not much reason to watch, but it is difficult to see continual growth in one version of a character while the more watched version appears to flounder far too often.

Maybe it’s just me. This is only my opinion, after all, and the show remains popular. However, I would like to point out that some of the common complaints I’ve seen, most notably that The Walking Dead is too gruesome or relies too much on gore or violence, that doesn’t bother me. Sure, The Walking Dead is pretty gory compared to many television shows, but TV today is generally more gory and the show still pales in comparison to what we can find at the movie theaters. Also, when I hear complaints that the show kills off too many of its characters, I have to wonder what the complainers think they’re watching; there’s a zombie apocalypse going on in the show, and I would find it more unbelievable if characters weren’t being killed fairly often.

Also, though Season 7 kicked off with the murders of two of the better-known characters, I don’t feel this in and of itself drove viewers away. Some viewers, yes, especially considering the viciousness of the deaths, but looking at the larger picture, I think the bigger sins here were slowness and boredom. A couple of beloved characters were killed, but so what? The Walking Dead has done that time and time again. The season began with the characters massively failing to reach their goal of taking a pregnant Maggie (played by Lauren Cohan) to a safe place, then once the worst of the atrocities were over, Maggie continued on to safety. In other words, our heroes failed but not a whole lot really changed, at least not immediately, and then the final outcome wasn’t that different than if they hadn’t failed. This isn’t exactly great storytelling. Admittedly as the season wore on, more and more changed as Negan made things worse and worse for our heroes, but still, the plot inched forward slowly, oh so slowly.

The Walking Dead — The Present

Okay, I’ve talked about what I consider to be past concerns with The Walking Dead. Now I’ll take a look at what I believe are some current issues, though I’ll also dip back into the past a little.

Season 7

Negan, the villain everyone loves to hate on The Walking Dead, but is he really all that frightening?

Here let me say I feel The Walking Dead on TV has always suffered from good, strong villains, which is a shame because awesome villains can make a story even when other characters might be rather lackluster. I was never a big fan of David Morrissey’s The Governor nor do I care much for Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Negan.

Once more, this isn’t necessarily me having a preference for the graphic novels over the show, as I wasn’t much of a fan of The Governor nor of Negan in the comics.

That being said, much like Andrew Lincoln’s version of Rick Grimes, the Negan of the comic books would dominate Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Negan without batting an eyelash.

Morgan has portrayed Negan almost as some Joker wannabe, constantly cracking jokes and smiles. While there is some element of this in Negan from the graphic novels, the character there is much more. The comics version of Negan knows when to tone down or turn off his jocular side, while Morgan doesn’t seem to do this, almost constantly relying on a fake, forced humor, making Negan look more like some wild-eyed psychopath than a truly deadly rival to Rick and threat to those in Alexandria and elsewhere.

To some extent, this is a matter of believability to me. Admittedly we’re talking a fictional world and fictional characters, but there is more than a little truth to the old saying that “truth is stranger than fiction.” Those who write fiction generally know they have to make their worlds and characters and plots somewhat believable or their readers or viewers will balk and walk. Here, I feel the TV version of Negan fails.

What I mean is, I watch the Negan character on television and I don’t feel any fear of him, nor do I feel revulsion or anger. I can only sit and watch and ask myself, “Okay, why hasn’t someone blown this clown away yet?” And I don’t mean Rick or another of the Alexandrians. No, I’m talking about Negan’s own people. Morgan’s Negan doesn’t come off as especially strong or threatening to me, but more of a buffoon with a psychopathic streak. He should have been shot dead long ago by Dwight or another associate in either a bid to seize power or just to do away with this lunatic. To anyone paying attention, it should be obvious Negan is bad news while not offering any true potential for the future.

The Negan in the graphics novels, however, is a different animal. He does make use of humor, but not so much in a constant “I’m unpredictable” kind of way, but more in a buddy-buddy sort of way, as if he’s trying to disarm or fool someone emotionally and mentally. On top of that, the graphics novel Negan is a total hard ass, someone I easily could see stirring up fear in others and loyalty in his own people.

Besides the villain(s), of late The Walking Dead has fallen into a habit of neutering its strongest characters. For instance, since the character’s first appearance, Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) has been one of the most capable figures on the show, but for nearly all of Season 7 so far he has been imprisoned and enslaved by Negan, biding his time for escape. Until partway through Season 6, Carol, played by Melissa McBride, has not only been one of the strongest characters within the series, but she has had perhaps the strongest and most interesting character arc, having gone from a battered wife to a warrior to be reckoned with, using guile and skill to tackle the living and the dead alike; but beginning in Season 6, Carol has unwound, in my opinion becoming lesser than her former self, which has been sad to see, especially considering how slow and frustrating the whole process has been.

The Walking Dead

Zombies from The Walking Dead.

How can The Walking Dead win back viewers?

I think the show needs to do several things.

Most importantly, the writers need to recall that this is serialized television. In serials, plot is king. Characterization is fine, as are other aspects of drama, but plot is what keeps the whole thing rolling in serialized fiction. No more episodes, or seasons, where characters do nothing but walk or sit around talking about themselves. Character motivations can be shown through action, not just dialogue.

I also think the Negan character needs to be strengthened. The Walking Dead is in dire need of a Hannibal Lecter or Darth Vader, a major villain who scares everyone simply by presence, though possibly also having some likable or at least understandable qualities. Negan is supposed to be that figure, but so far he is not. Perhaps if we learn more about Negan’s past, but so far, no. We need Negan to be tough, to be wicked, to be frightening, but we don’t need him to be a clown, at least not all the time. Harley Quinn he isn’t.

The recent mid-season ending to Season 7 shows some bright possibilities, what with Daryl finally returning to the fold and Rick and some others finally showing some backbone again, so I can only hope the second half of the season will be better. Maybe if Carol finally gets over herself, she and Morgan (Lennie James) can reunite with their former companions and form an alliance against Negan.

Okay, I’ve rattled on enough. Feel free to disagree, or agree, and let me know what you think in the comments section.

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Ty Johnston

A former newspaper editor for two decades in Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky, Ty now earns his lunch money as a fiction writer, mostly in the fantasy and horror genres. He is vice president of Rogue Blades Foundation, a non-profit focused upon publishing heroic literature. In his free time he enjoys tabletop and video gaming, long swording, target shooting, reading, and bourbon. Find City of Rogues and other books and e-books by Ty Johnston at Amazon.

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