10. Poor Characterization
Characterization has been the show's biggest weakness since season one. Four seasons in and how well developed are the characters? We've seen all of them go through terrible, incredible things, but when you actually think about, how much more insight do have into most of the key players than we did three years ago? And how many of them do we really care about (apart from, say, Darryl)? The writing of many characters is thin and inconsistent. The prime example of said anemic writing can be tied to Michonne. We know nothing about her that we didn't know at the start of season three. She's given very little dialogue in her episodes, and the attempts this season to give her more story (her hunt for the governor, the banter with Carl and Rick) are still quite insignificant. This is a character that I desperately want to like, but so far all we know is that she's a badass fighter with a samurai sword - beyond that, there's nothing. The poster child for inconsistent writing is Merle, however. Last season he was all over the place. From one episode to another, he could go from being an obnoxious, loudmouth racist, to a cunning, efficient solider. Characterization shouldn't be dependent on who is writing that particular episode. And because Merle was relatively ill-defined, it seems like the writers just wrote him whatever way fit the saw fit at the time. For a viewer, it's difficult to watch.