The Walking Dead: 10 Reasons Fans Are Abandoning The Show
3. The Relentless Filler
The Walking Dead has always had a padding problem. Season two felt like nothing but filler thanks to the time spent idling around Hersel’s farm, and the second half of season three stretched out the war between the prison and Woodbury to breaking point.
The show became better with pacing in season four, introducing split narratives or bottle episodes that helped develop some of the side characters. Sure, it was another form of padding, but it resulted in a couple of great individual instalments, like the Morgan/Eastman episode. Now it uses this format solely to stretch things out, splitting the story and characters as a flimsy excuse not to move the actual narrative forward.
The recent Tara episode is a perfect example. There was no reason to devote an entire episode to this character, and it did precious little to advance anything. Fans are bored of these empty calorie episodes, and the show has become increasingly reliant on them.