The Walking Dead: 12 Moments That Pissed Off The Fans
'I love this show... I hate this show... I love this show... I hate this show!'
The Walking Dead is one of the biggest shows on TV, often breaking ratings records set by itself.
With a regular audience reaching a staggering eight figures, making it not just the most-watched cable show but beating out a lot of network giants as well, it's no surprise that it has garnered an incredibly active and passionate fanbase, aided by the fact it's an adaptation of an already successful comic book series.
At its best, The Walking Dead can excite, shock, and entertain its viewers like few other series could hope to. Unfortunately, it often fails to reach those dizzying heights, instead making a number of decisions that turn it into one of the most frustrating shows on TV, rather than one of the outright best.
It's been besieged by various problems since the early days, both on-screen and behind-the-scenes, and while the audience has grown, it's also pissed plenty of people off along the way.
12. Changing Showrunner...Twice
The Walking Dead came bursting out of the gates in its first season, a short-but-exciting run that showed just how gripping, gory, and great this series could be. Heading it all up was Frank Darabont, director and writer of the likes of The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile.
With the show winning a legion of fans and already starting to smash records, hopes were high for Season 2. Halfway through production, however, Darabont was surprisingly fired from the show, with initial reports suggesting he couldn't work with a TV schedule. However, it later emerged that he'd clashed with network execs, who wanted him to make more episodes on a lower budget than Season 1 had.
He was replaced with writer/producer Glen Mazarra, who oversaw the show until the end of Season 3, before he himself left, citing a lack of control over the direction the show was headed in.
While Scott Gimple has managed to stay the course so far, the first two showrunners departing, each after successful seasons, and the idea of executive meddling did nothing to endear the show to fans.