The Walking Dead is a confusing show. Sometimes great, sometimes downright awful for whole seasons at a time, the quality is inconsistent, and that's being charitable. Yet when it works, it really is great. Some of the best moments of the show are up there with any television going on at the moment, and it's the least we should expect, what with the source material the writers have available to them. Season 5 was probably the most consistently excellent of the show so far, though it's hard to beat Season 1 for all round entertainment. It didn't necessarily listen to fan criticism, it simply did things a lot better than it did before. There was still a lot of wandering and a lot of different plot-lines going on one after the other, but for some reason it all worked out. Maybe they just had better material to work with: after all, The Hunter's were more disturbing than The Governor and Alexandria was a more engaging setup than the prison. That said, there is still a lot for the writers and actors to work on in Season 6 to ensure the show doesn't drop back into its Seasons 3 and 4 slump. Even better, they could improve it to the point it really becomes classic, unmissable television. If they are to do that, there are some very specific mistakes that they need to avoid to make the show better.
10. Killing Off Black Characters
One noticeable habit the show got itself into was introducing black characters to audiences, only to kill them soon after. It was happening with such regularity in the early seasons that you had to wonder if it was being treated as some devilish in-joke. That black characters don't survive has become a kind of unofficial horror-trope but it would be nice if the show bucked the trend. Season 5 might be interpreted by some as the first sign of progress. Characters like Noah and Tyreese may have bitten the dust, but anybody is game in The Walking Dead, and it's very much the context that matters. Importantly Sasha's role was given time to evolve and Gabriel Stokes was introduced into the group. It's not that black characters shouldn't die like everybody else on the show, it's just that they've died with unerring regularity compared to their white counterparts until now.
