Any regular watcher of television knows the pain of having to sit through filler. Sure, it varies in quality, and sometimes it can even be good, but no matter what you can never shake the feeling that you want the show to get on with it. All shows have filler in some capacity, and the best of it is able to blend in seamlessly with the core story. The Walking Dead is a show where almost all of it is filler. Seeing as how there is no plot or goal the characters are striving towards outside of live to see the next day, this is not surprising. This wouldnt necessarily be a bad thing if all this down time was spent actually developing the characters. Instead, most time is dedicated to characters talking about the latest crisis over and over ad nauseam, and whenever it does take the time to develop them it comes off as cheesy. Many people will stand up and claim that this so called filler is actually character development, but if that is truly the case, how is it that the characters feel so distant and stale? How can a show with so much time devoted to its characters and their interactions feel so thinly drawn? Such feelings are how you know you are dealing with filler; so much time is devoted to character interactions that progress nowhere. This heightens the already slow nature of the show. Its a very nuanced issue that really needs to be fixed if The Walking Dead is to improve.
