8 Things The Walking Dead Must Fix In Season 8 Part B

The Walking Dead is midway through what might be its most disappointing season to date. Seasons 2 and 7 take some topping for that honour, but All-Out War was much higher on promise than either of those, yet equally lacking in payoff so far.

While steadily declining ratings reflect the zombie show's slow decay, all is not lost. With some course correction, there's no reason why Rick Grimes and his motley band of survivors can't recapture their former glory.

AMC is well aware that The Walking Dead can be relevant once again, having renewed it for season 9 and appointed Angela Kang as the new showrunner, but Season 8B has groundwork to do to ensure it continues beyond that.

Some of the show's strongest characters haven't been put to the best use in the current series, and that needs to change pronto. Moreover, there are plot threads that have been left to dangle for too long, and they must be nipped in the bud.

All-Out War has fired mostly blanks so far, but with these fixes in place, it can still provide the incendiary conflict it promised when Season 8B kicks off next month.

There's supposed to be a large-scale war going on during The Walking Dead's current season, but most of the time, you wouldn't know it. Aside from the action-packed premiere and explosive mid-season finale, there have been few battles to speak of and the subplots are beginning to feel drawn out.

Building up to the set pieces is fine, not to mention necessary, but season 8 has crawled along at the pace of a walker with its bottom half missing. In story terms, only a handful of days has elapsed since the opener. Character arcs and the conflict between Team Rick and Negan's Saviors hasn't moved on enough.

Too much of the story is unfolding in real time or standing still. Cast your mind back to the all-killer-no-filler Season One in which Rick travelled hundreds of miles to reach his family. Viewers didn't need a minute-by-minute breakdown of his journey. The writers simply cut to the chase, giving the story the tension and urgency it needed.

Season 8 has so far been robbed of this momentum and that must change. It's time to pick up the pace and start streamlining those subplots. All of season 8's developments involving Ezekiel and Kingdommers, and Maggie over in the Hilltop Colony needed no more than a single episode dedicated to them, with the rest of the runtime invested in the overarching war. This is an event that's reshaping Walking Dead's universe, yet there are times when it feels like it's almost on the back-burner.