What's your take on the fall in popularity of The Walking Dead?

[Emperor-of-Dragons]

Two intangible things happen, it got too popular for its own good, and the backlash to Glen Rhee hobbled the writers ability to take risks. This show also avoided a lot of the darker elements and big event arcs from the comics. The show just got too soft, and too melodramatic. The new showrunner (Angela Kang) for season 9 was a breath of fresh air, but the damage was done by then. A show like this could've in theory go on indefinitely. But by season 11, people wanted it to be over. Then there was the filler eps, the lack of actual horror, the refusal to fire Gimple. In fact Gimple is still over the franchise to this day. He's AMC's yes man. I mean how else could you desribe him? Also there was a time when Fear The Walking Dead was arguably better then TWD. But then it fell victim to changing showrunner too. 🤷🏾*♂️ Also in MY unpopular opinion Carol and Daryl should have died at some point. Just like Cersi Lannister over stayed her welcome so did Daryl and Carol.. The plot armor was just INSANE. Btw season 3 of Fear The Walking Dead was genuinely good before it too fell apart after a retool to make it lighter and softer.

[James Cameron]

Kirkman and the showrunners should have used TWD as a way to correct any issues readers had with certain storylines from the comic, but instead they added a bunch of new things and made extreme deviations that didn't make sense. They overloaded it with characters and subplots instead of focusing on the core group from the book. Certain characters who should have died earlier died way too late and vice versa, characters like Tyrese were introduced way too late essentially making them completely different characters. Rick Grimes with two hands was another mistake as that moment symbolizes so much in the comic series.

Almost every deviation from the source material was a mistake and made the show overly complicated and messy. If they had closely followed the comic and didn't introduce 100 characters at once, it would have been a lot more enjoyable, and maybe Glenn's death could have gone over a little better. We should not have had a whole season on Hershel's farm, Shane should have died before the end of season 1, these are just a couple early examples and they aren't bad on their own but they are part of what led the show down its rocky path, basically saying "it's okay that we can change this stuff" and after that the changes became more egregious.

[The Cool Thatguy]

The zombie genre by itself is pretty damn repetitive. Like a knock knock joke, really.

Couldn't last forever.

[Nathaniel Gray]

Kirkman and the showrunners should have used TWD as a way to correct any issues readers had with certain storylines from the comic, but instead they added a bunch of new things and made extreme deviations that didn't make sense. They overloaded it with characters and subplots instead of focusing on the core group from the book. Certain characters who should have died earlier died way too late and vice versa, characters like Tyrese were introduced way too late essentially making them completely different characters. Rick Grimes with two hands was another mistake as that moment symbolizes so much in the comic series.

Almost every deviation from the source material was a mistake and made the show overly complicated and messy. If they had closely followed the comic and didn't introduce 100 characters at once, it would have been a lot more enjoyable, and maybe Glenn's death could have gone over a little better. We should not have had a whole season on Hershel's farm, Shane should have died before the end of season 1, these are just a couple early examples and they aren't bad on their own but they are part of what led the show down its rocky path, basically saying "it's okay that we can change this stuff" and after that the changes became more egregious.

Agreed. The non stop speechifying really pushed me away from the series, Jeffrey Dean Morgan was the nail in the coffin for me. He is NOT Negan, and ruined what was left of the show for me just as Morgan did for Fear.

Years of blah blah blah sanctimonious BS ruined the show.

[choptop]

The zombie genre by itself is pretty damn repetitive. Like a knock knock joke, really.

Couldn't last forever.

No more then any other horror genre?

[Godzilla2099]

Stopped watching that show a long time ago. I think when Negan was introduced. I found it boring as hell. I remember not much zombies. Mostly people being miserable with their lives. Just got tired of waiting for something cool to happen.

There were far better options (at least movies) that I'd have rather spent my time on.

[Frobisher]

Zombie fatigue.

[Jekyll]

It LOOOOOOONNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGG overstayed it's welcome as a franchise.

[HollowSage]

A show like this could've in theory go on indefinitely.

Really? How many shows have accomplished such a feat. Eventually everyone gets tired of it, even the people making it.

[Jokerz79]

Really? How many shows have accomplished such a feat. Eventually everyone gets tired of it, even the people making it.

Soap Operas.

[Jokerz79]

I feel Season 4 was probably the shows high point for me and from my own personal view point I think the show got stale once they got to Alexandria. Now I did enjoy Negan as a character, and I think the show got slightly better again once they did the time jump with older Judith. But season 10 and 11 were the worst seasons IMO. Also, Fear and definitely Beyond never came close to reaching the highs of the original series. Think Dead City has been the best the franchise has been in years.

As for the average viewers Glenn's death was definitely the turning point it wasn't just that he died it was how while true to the comic it was too brutal for mainstream audiences and turnoff many viewers. I think killing of Carl and later Rick leaving were the final blows to cause a lot of the average viewers who were still watching to quit.

[caj]

I feel Season 4 was probably the shows high point for me and from my own personal view point I think the show got stale once they got to Alexandria. Now I did enjoy Negan as a character, and I think the show got slightly better again once they did the time jump with older Judith. But season 10 and 11 were the worst seasons IMO. Also, Fear and definitely Beyond never came close to reaching the highs of the original series. Think Dead City has been the best the franchise has been in years.

As for the average viewers Glenn's death was definitely the turning point it wasn't just that he died it was how while true to the comic it was too brutal for mainstream audiences and turnoff many viewers. I think killing of Carl and later Rick leaving were the final blows to cause a lot of the average viewers who were still watching to quit.

This for me as well.

It became extremely boring when they got to Alexandria. I stopped watching for awhile.

I came back to see who Negan killed and was annoyed that with all the dead weight they were carrying, they chose to kill off two interesting characters in Abraham and Glenn.

I was done.

[ChrisIII]

I wouldn't say they didn't take risks entirely after Glenn's death; Carl was a big gamble, Tara & Enid were also pretty popular characters, Henry was a pretty big deal as he seemed posed to take on Carl's comic storylines (Which kind of shifted to Judith) and was yet another kid that Carol lost, especially since he had been with her a while (whereas the Samuels siblings-one of whom was quite insane-were kind of in her protection for only a short time and she almost intentionally got Sam killed). although a lot of the other spike deaths were of characters who had only been around for that season such as the Highwaymen, Henry's friends, Brett Butler's character, and I don't think Francine-one of Negan's wives-ever got that much development compared to Sherry).

In the final season they did kind of not bother killing any major characters off except Rosita at the end. Luke was pretty much a given since Dan Folger has other commitments.

[Madam-Shogun-Assassin]

The death of Glenn (and Abraham), coupled with Gimple's tedious showrunning, and the miserable bleak tone is what did it in. The tone probably would have been fine if it wasn't for Gimple's stagnation. But it was just too much for casual viewers and they bailed. I'll defend Glenn's death to the death, cause it was a major death from the comics, and the show needed it after Glen Mazzara (or AMC) chickened out on adapting the prison arc's dark story line. That could have been the show's own "Red Wedding" episode, but they noped the **** out of it.

Also Season 3 of Fear was definitely better than the mainland show at the time. But that's another can of worms. Beyond was never good tho lol.

[Vegeta]

Kinda felt like the same thing every season. Rick finds a community that was somehow thriving during the zombie plague, tells em they are doing it wrong, takes over, starts a war with some local warlord and the town he took over eventually burns to the ground.

The whole zombies "aren't the real threat, humans are" was played out with the Romero films, seeing the same thing happen season after season was repetitive, and felt like the story really wasn't going anywhere.

Shaun of the Dead was better take on the zombie genre.