The Walking Dead: Ranking All 9 Seasons From Worst To Best

After a decade of highs and lows, which season still stands as the show's best?

the walking dead
AMC

After nine seasons, The Walking Dead is still chugging along with no end in sight. While it may not be the cultural behemoth it once was just a few short years ago thanks to a steep ratings decline over the last three seasons, it's still one of the most-watched cable shows on television, meaning it'll be around for years to come.

It's not that controversial to say that throughout its run, The Walking Dead has experienced an incredible number of highs and lows. Through four different showrunners over the years - Frank Darabont, Glen Mazzara, Scott Gimple, and now Angela Kang - the show has both gifted pop culture with unforgettable characters and watercooler moments and stumbled through poor decisions that have turned many fans away and become infamous in their own right.

With the show's tenth season now early in production, let's take a spoiler-filled look back at the bumpy road that is the show's legacy to sort out which seasons stand as examples of the show firing on all cylinders and which ones fell far short of greatness...

9. Season 8

the walking dead
Gene Page/AMC

Perhaps one of the show's biggest mistakes was dragging the "All Out War" arc out across two seasons. After Glenn and Abraham's deaths in the season seven premiere, viewers needed some sort of catharsis in seeing Negan get what was coming to him by season's end, but it never came, and season eight arrived only to drag the story out for yet another year before finally bringing it to a close.

The season had a few standout episodes along the way, like "Some Guy" and "Worth," but unfortunately one could feel the strain of the arc being stretched out from week to week while watching. Characters had a seemingly endless supply of bullets, all of which always conveniently seemed to miss Negan, and rarely did conversations between characters feel authentic anymore, with actors we'd known for years forced to spout vagaries and never-ending monologues more pretentious than profound.

On the upside, characters like Simon got to shine - actor Steven Ogg truly crushed it - and there were some neat walker kills as usual, but those positives were far too outweighed by negatives. From the mind-boggling decision to kill Carl - and the behind the scenes drama surrounding that - to the overall bloat of the cast forcing many characters to serve as nothing more than wallpaper, season eight was the show at its lowest point, casting a shadow on the show's legacy that future seasons now have to claw their way out from under.

Contributor
Contributor

Writer, film enthusiast, part-time gamer and watcher of (mostly) good television located on the fringe of Los Angeles, who now has his own website at www.highdefgeoff.com!