The Walking Dead: 4 Things "Spend" Got Right (And 6 It Didn't)

2. Moving Very Slowly

The TV renaissance has been slowly training audiences to accept a slower pace than they're used to. Television comedies are twenty minutes long, racing through multiple plot lines in that time; police procedurals, the hardy perennial of network TV in the US, have a familiar structure and fast pace for every episode; meanwhile the likes of The Wire and Breaking Bad take things slow. These character studies, these treaties on society and the human condition, have a lot to say. By slowing things down they're making a power play, the equivalent of the boardroom tactic of speaking quietly to draw people in, to make sure they're properly paying attention €“ by moving at a snail's pace, telly shows get you watching closely. Usually that's all the better for then pulling the rug out from under you when it gets to the end of the season. That's the tactic The Walking Dead has long been using, but it doesn't work so much with such a heavily serialised show, and one that has twice as many episodes per season as most dramas. €œSpend€ especially suffered from feeling so slow as to be static.