Is anybody even arsed with TWD anymore?

Psychlops

Hi all,

Just thought I would put it out there and ask does anybody even care its back?

I loved seasons 1-3 especially the Governor and 1-3 were actually good and more action filled with more emphasis on Walkers but then it just dived right off a cliff, very slow to start, some seasons just drawn out & long winded, killing off main characters, I am really finding it hard to watch this anymore

I have yet to see them make any roads ways to get out of where they are, there is a whole nation out there for them to potentially explore, jesus id even watch them try live in an airport or anything.

BsBox

Latest episode was a 5/10 for me.
The deer CGI was like PS2 graphics, or as someone else put it, “like watching a 3D deer without the 3D glasses on“, and the CGI for the rubbish pile/camp was even worse. They spend millions on these series and yet it feels like they allocated about $5 for that department.
The faked-deaths are becoming seriously annoying (

like, who for even 2 seconds believed Rick was actually dead?

), and them just happening to come across all these massive untouched caches of guns and food at their time of most need is also just a little too unbelievable.

It's just lazy, terrible writing, and its been going steadily downhill for a long time now. I watch it for the sake of keeping up with the story and hoping it'll pick up again, but most of the time when it's on now, I end up spending half the episode reading articles.

12gauge dave

I watched it untill the spisode of lastest season where daryl is locked up and that song "easy street" is playing. It was my favourite show but i just cant build up the courage to watch it anymore.

Dirty Dingus McGee

I loved it up until Season 5, the last couple of seasons should have been seasons to finally get to a solution.7 seasons is about the max a show should on for and really the Negan type story has effectively been done already as The Governor story arc.There is really no end in sight at the moment when that's where the story should be now.

The show is called The Walking Dead and the Walkers should still be a big problem for the group to deal with but they haven't been for the last couple of seasons.

Also this season is my first season watching week to eek and I think the show suits bulk watching the boxset rather than week to week watching.

I'm still sticking it out to the end though (no matter how long it takes)

Hande hoche!

Still watching it week to week. No longer rushing to watch it as early as possible. As others have said, it seems to be a show that might benefit from being binge watched.

frostyjacks

The shelf life of TV shows is normally around 4-5 years, after which things get a little stale. Still, I wouldn't have expected TWD to dip as sharply as it has. I have it on series record, but I really only watch it now when there's nothing else on.

There's a good take on the decline here :

http://therightstuff.biz/2017/02/25/killing-the-walking-dead-2/

It does feel like it's become a soap opera, rather than a Cormac McCarthy-The Road style account of the post-apocalypse. It's just too virtuous now. Everybody is falling over each other to sacrifice themselves. There's no real suspense, no sense of impending doom.

Agricola

I'm following it still because there's very little that I watch on tv nowadays so 40 minutes out of my week is ok with me. Not a great endorcement!

Loved Season 1 because it felt like a serialized zombie movie. But it has been all downhill since then. It's just a soap opera now with the occasional bit of gore. Not that I want gore all the time. I've had that leveled at me by people who don't like Game of Thrones - "oh you only watch it for the decapitations and the sex" - which is utter nonsense. There is no comparison between the writing in these two shows and that is why TWD is now a pure chore to stick with.

For me, it's biggest indictment is that it makes no effort to address the cause of the apocalypse. The characters never reference it, no storylines are written which move towards addressing it. That will probably all come in the final season in a cynical bid for massive ratings. But for now it is so obviously a series of strung out, slow paced episodes where nothing happens. It's just a vehicle for adverts at this point.

TerrorFirmer

I suspect most people watch it because they're invested in the characters. I still watch it weekly but it's become a grind, it's so horribly drawn out and it takes forever for anything noteworthy to actually happen. I agree with the above that it's descended into far more of a soap than a proper TV show.

They need to freshen it up pronto and introduce plot elements like remnants of a government, a cure, the scale of the outbreak (country, continent, or global?) etc. The show is about zombies and this season is about Negan....yet we barely see the former and don't see nearly enough of the latter, instead been fed mindless filler for the majority of the time.

Personally for me it started getting pretty stale around Season 3, when they obviously decided to wring each season out like a wet towel given the audience numbers.

Sand

Eh, I'm interested in the show but more out of stubbornness these days. I have it on record but I'm a couple of episodes behind at this point and I'm in no rush to catch up. Fairly sure I'm not missing anything.

The show has become too implausible. Even the setting in Alexandria is a little slice of American suburbia. Bad neighbours move in up the street, will they all learn to get along? The drama in a zombie apocalypse is created by the threat of the zombies. The show has undermined their threat to the point that the pressure is gone, and the drama has soaked away with it. Negan's threat is completely diluted too. He was vastly more threatening when he was an off-screen, unknown leader of an army of fanatical, brutal fighters.

Now Rick and Carl take turns spitting in his face, and Negan just smiles and bears it. The model for Negan and his army should have been Boko Haram - someone looks wrong at them, they cut that persons arm off. Negan just smiles. There is no bite to all his bark. Rick and Carl are clearly protected by plot armour so having Carl act up like a brat to Negan just highlights how non-threatening he actually is. It would be nice for once for Carl to actually be afraid of Negan. Why should the viewer be afraid if a half child teenager clearly isnt?

D0NNELLY

Similar to the last couple of seasons of Clarkson era Top Gear, I watch out of hope that they can turn it around.

Typer Monkey

frostyjacks wrote: »

There's a good take on the decline here :

http://therightstuff.biz/2017/02/25/killing-the-walking-dead-2/

.

Well that's quite the racist misogynistic rant..I feel like washing my eyeballs after reading that

alchemist33

Typer Monkey wrote: »

Well that's quite the racist misogynistic rant..I feel like washing my eyeballs after reading that

Don't forget homophobic. That writer has some deep issues with the world.

Unearthly

alchemist33 wrote: »

Don't forget homophobic. That writer has some deep issues with the world.

Wonder when he said Merle was his favourite did he mean the character or his ideology

DvB

12gauge dave wrote: »

I watched it untill the spisode of lastest season where daryl is locked up and that song "easy street" is playing. It was my favourite show but i just cant build up the courage to watch it anymore.

That was actually the last episode myself & the Mrs watched. We both agreed we needed a break from it at that stage. We had intended catching up over Christmas & never bothered, but I'll tentatively splan to catch up once the series ends with a binge watch... waiting a week to watch yet another non episode was far too much of a chore.

frostyjacks

Typer Monkey wrote: »

Well that's quite the racist misogynistic rant..I feel like washing my eyeballs after reading that

Yes, he doesn't mince his words, but he hits the nail on the head. It's become just too darn nice, like the post Apocalypse as imagined by Hilary Clinton. The places they live actually look nicer and have more amenities than a lot of towns and villages around Ireland. Look at the roads, not a single pothole anywhere.

arayess

frostyjacks wrote: »

Yes, he doesn't mince his words, but he hits the nail on the head. It's become just too darn nice, like the post Apocalypse as imagined by Hilary Clinton. The places they live actually look nicer and have more amenities than a lot of towns and villages around Ireland. Look at the roads, not a single pothole anywhere.

i think it's an excellent synopsis - he does ruin it by bringing his "politics" into it because that distracts from the message and makes people complain about that instead of the overall gist- but I think he is spot on in general terms.

frostyjacks

You just know the Governor would've had Negan on toast. He'd have smoked his ass.

nc6000

I only watch it because it's set to record on series link on my Sky box. Apart from that I can't say I would be too bothered and can say for certain that I wouldn't exactly be counting the days until the next episode.

I could easily get to the end of this season and just not bother with it when it comes back.

Mr.Nice Guy

I've stopped watching and checked out the events of the last 3 shows by reading a show summary. I hit my limit with that Kingdom nonsense.

Padraig Mor

I've been watching since the very start but am giving it up now - it's just so BORING! When I look at the thread for the latest episode (7x13) and people seem to regard it as good, I have to wonder if they're watching the same show - I nearly fell asleep!

frozenfrozen

I have the last two or three episodes still to watch, can't remember deciding not to keep watching but I just haven't... I'll probably go back if I am sick for a few days and run out of stuff to watch

mickoneill31

I gave up a few episodes ago. I hit a point where I realised it was more like work than entertainment.

Alicano

I never really watched a lot of TV and I'm even worse when it comes to films. But my Girlfriend, some work colleagues. my niece etc all swore for TWD. And so I set off 7 years behind and invested so much time in catching up. I was surprised at how much I liked it. But as others have said.. I have snoozed my way through this current season. Opener was great.. then it just dived. Long episodes with slow dialogue.. endless standing around. Like someone else posted, I found the Kingdom and 'The King' very hard. Rubbish at times. Morgan is doing my head in.. shut up with the 'we don't have to' chat and start helping/killing. Carol, who was great in the Terminus and a bad ass with the 'kids incident', has become a complete bore and moan. You can't go through all that amount of drama and then just move to a little house by yourself and leave everyone to it.. 'Jesus' is just a stand around character too.. Maggie is gone to sh1t..
The episode that was entirely about the women only community was one of the worst for me.
And finally, after a great opener. I am bored with this Negan carry on. Let's just fight and move on please.
*One more thing sorry The Garbage pale kids community that are looking for guns.. WTF? Who talks or looks like this?. It's like Kevin Costners Waterworld
Sorry for the waffle. I've just invested so much time in the show and am fed up.

Sugarlumps

There was one excellent episode this season. The fat lad with the mullet. Every other episode was garbage.

klose

I hit the wall again with it after a couple of episodes this season, negan irked me as he always acted the same and the kingdom? A panto with a bloody lion give me strength. I will eventually probably catch up with it out of curiosity like I did last time I got fed up with it but it's feeling like more of a chore (which is a word I see popping up with the show more and more)

I went through a phase of watching walking dead reviews/critiques and most seem to agree the show had an amazing first season with frank darabont was the strongest and I fully agree. One video touched how he was planning to do a backstory on the soilder in the tank that rick hides in from season one and picks up the grenade. Instead he got fired and we got the tedious season long farm story in season 2. Show feels like it could be so much more.

sonofenoch

Looks like I'll be given this weeks a miss, that's 2 out of the last 3 I've not watched seen last weeks missed the one before .......I don't think I've ever done that before, not even bothered to catch up on it somewhere

ArthurG

frostyjacks wrote: »

There's a good take on the decline here :

http://therightstuff.biz/2017/02/25/killing-the-walking-dead-2/

I stopped at 'Andrew Lincoln's vomit inducing love interest' although I could have stopped much earlier.

B.A._Baracus

Me and my brother would watch it together and we both realised how much the show drags on at one point.

Think we stopped just after season 4. The show always had the dragging on problem I found. Like the first season was great (it also only had a few episodes) and while season 2 was alright it did drag a bit.

It's almost like the writers come up with the story for each season and then just stretch it to fit the number of episodes. Not caring if it will drag.

PhiloCypher

This used to be appointment telly for me , frustrating appointment telly , but appointment telly nonetheless, but I've just lost interest altogether this season , I think the last episode I watched was the second last one before the mid season break. They are just dragging everything thing out beyond all narrative sense . This used to be a fairly plot driven show with the odd standalone character piece like Morgan's in the episode 'clear' or the one where he gets his bo staff, but now they are the norm and plot advancement episodes are the exception. It's turned what should have been an exciting arc into a dull slog punctuated by the odd instance of ultra violence at the beginning middle and end of every season.

ThisRegard

B.A._Baracus wrote: »

Me and my brother would watch it together and we both realised how much the show drags on at one point.

I was about to delete the last 3 episodes that I had recorded but decided to watch them on fast forward to see if anything exciting looks like it's about to happen. I missed nothing doing so. I think that's it for me with the show now.

Charlie19

This season started off fairly poor and I had nearly given up on a couple of occasions but the few episodes without "The King" has been fairly enjoyable and I'm glad that I gave it another chance.

Simon and Negan are two characters that have livened up the show.

Keplar240B

I used to really like it. Its declined a bit since season 4


Some things gone wrong 5-7


Fear the walking dead spinoff show, a massive mistake by AMC they have diluted their product/efforts and overstimulated the zombie franchise market.

It was this point(NEGAN intro) The source materiel also got stale and dragged out, They should have learnt lessons from comic and wrapped Negan up in one season it looks like we are getting two.

The ASZ residents was portrayed as too stupid and sheltered.

Endless mopery and too much mental health, depression, grief focus.

The destruction of Morgans character only saved somewhat by the fact that he is excellent actor

Carol arc from meek battered house wife to ruthless fighter was brilliant
then they took it to far and turned her into Robocop.

The death fake-outs cliffhanger big and small especially in season 6 there where several of them.

Red shirt Characters dying utterly stupid deaths usually by stealth zombie, huge issue in season 6.
remember the guy that got bit by a zombie stuck in a tree(happened twice)
Or just the last episode when Gregory nearly got killed by a stealth zombie, its up-surd.


two many groups , Oceanside and garbage dump really necessary?
The Oceanside group is interesting and seems like a real group, The dump people are crap.

Complete abandonment of real world physics. this started in season 4. things are being including in the show that simply cannot happen, things which they never would have put in previous seasons. The earlier seasons where much more grounded.

Zombie special effects showcasing now dominate the show , entire episodes seem to be built around the effect they made, in it a new effect is added every episode sewer, mud, buried, water, fire, whatever . Some of its very good. Some of it forced and boring , Its like
(a)I have an idea Sewer zombies
(b) Ok now write a way to get the characters down a sewer for some reason


the saviours death toll , saviours where being killed like flies in season 6 completing destroying the storyline.

the wolves made no sense why did they not have ANY weapons although the two wolves we met where great characters

The tiger and the kingdom and some other stuff from source material has not translated well to the screen,

And last but not least the ratio of epic and good episodes to filler and slow boring ones has increased bigly.

sonofenoch

Just caught up with the latest episode, to be honest I nearly fell asleep


I've come to the conclusion this show should have been wrapped up in 5 or 6 series to go down as an all time classic.....as is they're dragging it out so much it's turning into 'The Grisly Waltons'

Lone Stone

I really hope they either bring the show to an end next season and give us a pay off for all these years of watching, or at least set up the final season because right now they really are just repeating the same thing over and over.

Mr.Nice Guy

Lone Stone wrote: »

I really hope they either bring the show to an end next season and give us a pay off for all these years of watching, or at least set up the final season because right now they really are just repeating the same thing over and over.

I think at this point they are just dragging it out for the cash. A bit like The Simpsons which got terrible after the 90s.

Wibbs

Lats week I binge watched the first two series and it really illustrated for me how drawn out and slow it is now and has been for a while. It was far better paced in the early days. If now was then the last series would have pretty much wrapped the Negan arc up by now. Maybe it's a problem with the comic source material? If so they should go off script. Also noticed that early on the zombies were more active, more "aware" and more threatening, even using rocks to break through glass.

Hank Scorpio

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

I think at this point they are just dragging it out for the cash. A bit like The Simpsons which got terrible after the 90s.

Terrible being an understatement.

Banjaxed82

They should put some zombies in the show.

Greyjoy

S6 had started to test my patience with the show but I think S7 has convinced me I'm done with it. This video sums up how I feel about the show now. One of his main points is that too much of the show's story now hinges around the 'big event' of either the midseason or season finale so there's nothing of consequence outside of that.

(spoilers for the comic storyline in vid)

harr

Really liked series 1 ....two was ok,3 I enjoyed and I gave it up in series 4 ...my wife still watching it so I get to see the odd episode..she really only watches it when nothing else on and because it's on series link. It has totally lost track of what the program was originally meant to be..in my opinion anyway.

razorblunt

I still can't get over THAT deer. What exactly were they thinking? Who suggested it? Who put it forward as a finished product? Who signed off on it? Why was it even needed?
They didn't need it, they could have used independent shots of a deer in the park, cut to Rick, cut to deer, deer through lens, Rick falls.

To top it off, the deer bolts, yet conveniently only ran 2 feet and stopped and was a handy decoy for the walkers to eat instead of Rick.

Also, fúck you Corallllll. That's an ongoing thing though.

Boom_Bap

It has become torture to watch this show, but like may others, I can't stop watching in the hope that it returns to form.
If they condensed all the bits from the most recent season into a 2 part episode, it would be great.
These long drawn out showdowns between rival factions where they outline everything they have done and plan to do is tedious. Even the twists in these show-downs are badly executed.
Even the loss of characters now doesn't really have an impact and its way too obvious that a character is getting iced when they are given an episode that focuses on them.

ScumLord

I never really got into this show as much as I wanted too, I was looking forward to a gritty zombie show with more realism but TWD disappointed throughout from the very beginning. It very much seems like it was written by people that don't really understand what real hardship is. The zombies were always flawed, soft enough that you could stick just about anything through their skulls but then somehow also strong enough to overpower people one on one.

The plot was forced misery all the time, in general the scenarios and characters never seemed plausible, I know it's based on a comic book but it failed at being serious and failed at being comic like were all these flaws could have been more acceptable.

I'm still waiting for a real zombie horror, TWD certainly isn't it, it's zombies by committee group meetings. As with most zombie films they just come up with cool sounding scenarios and wrap a plot around them.

sonofenoch

Banjaxed82 wrote: »

They should put some zombies in the show.

This....and give them some menace.......when the horde invaded the farm (in series 2 I think) that was edge of the seat tv, definitely left you coming back for more see wtf happens


but I'd guess they've gone past the point of no return with the zombies they've become so non threatening

cjmcork

I think I'm done with it - it now feels like being in a relationship where you both know it's not working anymore but neither have the energy to end it

at the season finale last year, I was up in the middle of the night to watch it - this year, I only watched it last night and can go days without watching the latest show, don't get me wrong - the shoot 'em up stuff in Sunday's show was top notch, but that's 2 minutes of an hour long show

I don't think I'll be watching when the new Season starts though

cartman555

haha it goes around in circles!

Testament1

At this stage Tarman would be a welcome addition to The Walking Dead!

https://youtu.be/wV1FKU9Oihw

InTheTrees

I binge watched the last four episodes of last season and when I got to the last one it looked like absolutely nothing has changed.

I dont need another season wallowing in the sadism of nagin. Enough already.

OneOfThem Stumbled

I didn't watch TWD for a long period. I suppose I'm not the biggest fan, mainly because some of the conceits relating to zombies make little sense in my mind

(don't have to eat or drink, don't bleed, are actually dead, instantly infect people when they bite but being covered in their gore doesn't count, automatically becoming a zombie when you die, and so on...)

But mainly the problem with the zombies (or "walkers") is that they just aren't much of a threat.

The show realised this (or its source comic strip did) and made the zombies merely a backdrop.

While the governor's watercolor township didn't make a jot of sense (I can see what they were going for, but the themes that they were trying to relate were shoehorned into a post-apocalyptic setting)... the Alexandria vs raider/Saviour plotline did inherently make sense.

Okay Alexandria itself is boring as ****, and doesn't stand two minutes' analysis (what do they eat, how are solar panels making that much energy, who mows the lawns, why do they have so much free time, why is their so much free space) nonetheless, the topic of the civilised communtiy vs raiders is great! It's a no-nonsense survival of the fittest bare-knuckle slug. What do you have to sacrifice in order to survive such an engagement? What do you do against a foe where nothing is off-limits?

But while a couple of the previous series had stand out episodes (such as when the Alexandirans were trying to shepherd the army of zombies away from the town, only for the town itself to be attacked whilst mostly undefended) by God did those series meander!

Want en episode talking about why Morgan doesn't like killing people? No? Tough luck, here you go. Want an episode with Carol talking about how she doesn't know herself any more? What about some details on Rick's love life? How are the teens of Alexandria doing? Is Eugene getting braver? How's Gabriel holding up? Is Denise feeling appreciated?

So much filler, so much time wasted. And now, after two major engagements between Rick's group and Negan we know why. Could the "Maggie is about to give birth, we need to get to the hospital on Hilltop" plot have just been a misfire? Judging by the last episode I guess not: the show writers don't know how to do those sort of set pieces. Seeing that the next season is about a war between Negan and Rick, I'm guessing that at best, it will be like the last episode. I'd almost welcome the snorefest of Alexandria domesticity over that.

InTheTrees

OneOfThem Stumbled wrote: »

Seeing that the next season is about a war between Negan and Rick, I'm guessing that at best, it will be like the last episode. I'd almost welcome the snorefest of Alexandria domesticity over that.

One more scene of negan standing over a group of kneeling figures deciding who to beat to death and i'm out. They cant keep using that same scene over and over again. Its lazy.

I'm glad I binge watched last season in two sittings because it meant I could FF with impunity.

Dirty Dingus McGee

Just binge watched the first season again and it was excellent stuff precisely because nobody really has a clue whats going on and how to deal with the world falling apart.Thats what the show should be about and the problem is that in the last couple of seasons everyone is a little too comfortable in the new reality of society falling apart and able to deal with it, people aren't merely surviving they're actually living lives in a routine manner.Once the show gets to that point they should be looking to shake it out of it's comfort zone and end it.

Whats also noticeable is that the walkers were much stronger and faster back in the early days (which makes sense) and therefore more of a threat to deal with.

Up to the end of season 5 it's great stuff but what should have happened is that once they got to Alexandria have it collapse fairly soon (like the mid season finale of Season 6) and then from there on the characters are on the way to trying to find a cure in Washington and end the show. Season 6 and 7 could have been condensed into one season and then have season 7 as the finale with a big showdown in Washington where there is an attempt to kill off all the walkers once and for all.

There is too much soap opera type drama in it now.It worked well in Season 2 because the characters of the group were not fully fleshed out at that stage but no need to keep going over that sort of stuff over and over again the show is supposed to be an action/horror show.

I've just seen on Wikipedia that the producers are planning at least 12 seasons which is really taking the piss altogether.