Why The Walking Dead Might Get Cancelled
2. There's Limited Scope For New Stories
We might get new groups of enemies every couple of seasons and a new big bad to focus our hatred on, but The Walking Dead has been walking in circles for some time now. Most of the major character conflicts are variations on the same themes of grey morality (and whether they'll kill each other for the greater good) and romantic and personal entanglements. Nobody can grow in a dead world.
The most interesting characters have mostly been killed off or left (in the case of Lennie James) and there's only so much of the same thing that fans will be able to take. This becomes particularly problematic when we're increasingly told - quite ominously - that there's no end in sight. With that information on top of the lack of real progression (even with the two year jump), it's no wonder fans have started to increasingly turn away.
AMC have a duty to their fans to be able to keep things fresh and interesting (because stagnation kills more shows than ratings issues in the end) and if you're honest, you might begin to admit that they look perilously close to being out of ideas. That should set off warning alarms all over the shop.