2. Standalone Stories
It's probably not a secret that the Frank Darabont era was something of a rocky one for The Walking Dead. Actually, any show that changes showrunners more often than those showrunners change underwear earns a reputation for a little rockiness. But one idea that Darabont had trumped anything that the program ever did. He wanted to have
occasional standalone stories in seasons, stories where the viewer would see random people they'd never been introduced to and follow them through the world for a bit. His original idea was to examine the dead man in the tank with Rick in the pilot, but there were rumors of others. Since then AMC has sort of come around, offering a similar approach to their TWD webisodes. Those look as good as anything the show itself has done. Seeing people aside from the usual suspects and how they struggle in the apocalypse would be refreshing and it might also give the viewer a new appreciation for the characters they know. It's hard to fully comprehend what's shown with no reference point to the rest of the world, having the occasional standalone episode like Darabont envisioned might help do that. Plus it's just an outright cool idea.