The Walking Dead Season 11 Review: 6 Ups & 4 Downs From "Acheron Part 1 & 2"
7. It's Still Playing Things Safe
The last few episodes of season ten played things very safe, offering up no major character deaths outside of villains Alpha and Beta whilst concluding the Whisperer War with a far-too-tidy finale.
Unfortunately, the season eleven premiere doubles down on this flaw, only killing off a couple of inconsequential red shirts and failing to offer up any major, game-changing twist until the last, incredibly promising cliffhanger.
It's still early on, of course, but the lack of daring is something the show will definitely have to combat going forward. Getting rid of some long-standing characters - Gabriel, Alden and Ezekiel have been on the chopping block for a while now - would help ramp up the tension and narrative intrigue of the story, and capture some of the unpredictable, death-happy madness of the show's early years.
Like I said, it's just getting started, but even so the premiere has played things safe with its characters and story developments more than usual.
And now, onto the Ups...