8 Good TV Shows One Crippling Flaw Away From Being Awesome

6. The Walking Dead Writes Good Characters Badly, Keeps Switching Showrunners

The first season of The Walking Dead blew me away: it was short and intense. Most of all, it felt real, like this is how the world itself can end. Frank Darabont did so much with only six episodes as he told the story of this zombie apocalypse. Then came Season 2 and the dragging episodes in the farm, the disappointing prison battle in the Season 3 finale, the Lori and Andrea haters: you know where I'm going with this. The fans essentially 'killed' the characters of Andrea and Lori with their online hatred. Also, with Frank Darabont being replaced by Glen Mazzara as showrunner, the episodes had a more different feel than before. And let's be honest, Mazzara also had his miscues as the top guy, and current show head Scott Gimple has had to clean up that mess as well. There was a reason why Breaking Bad was so transcendent: Vince Gilligan wrote and ran the show himself. It was not too long nor too short, and it was not dependent on fan reactions: he had a story to tell, he stuck with it and told it. I'm not saying that Walking Dead isn't a good show €“ it is, but when you have so many chefs cooking the broth, the results will be uneven. This is especially true if you're following a story that's already been told in another medium, never mind the fact that they do deviate from the source material. How amazing would it be if the head honchos on AMC let the writers run wild and tell them that no one is safe and they can kill off anyone and everyone? It is a zombie show, first and foremost: the walkers don't care that you're Rick Grimes or Daryl Dixon before they eat you, so why should the writers care? Because the fan backlash that will come from killing popular characters will cripple the show's ratings and AMC's monster hit series will sink right along with it. In a way, the Walking Dead is crippled and limited by its own popularity.