This has been the first season I've had to watch week by week as I only discovered it during the last season so was watching three episodes a day to catch up from the very start.
Although I still find it compelling, this series has been a big disappointment for me when comparing to the high standards set by what's gone before and the finale didn't quite change that, it nearly did but not quite. I know they follow the comics but I would have much preferred slightly less build up to the battle (maybe about 6 episodes less!) and devoting two or three episodes to the battle reaching a pinnacle with Negan and that twat Simon getting eaten slowly by the tiger. Now we've got to wait another six months.
You could fill three full seasons with the amount of filler episodes across the entire TWD series. So much waffle. Don't think I can be arsed with season 8. It's a bit like Charlton's recent history. Started off great (The Powell years) then got progressively terrible until you barely care what happens.
Its getting a bit up its own arse. Thought the fight scenes were poor last night something they generally do very well. Will still keep watching though
I'm constantly amazed at how much of a kicking this show gets. Particularly the 'filler episode' criticism.
In a show that has 16 episodes a year, I don't think there is much filler. Just an expectation for more action and plot development than a story can possibly sustain. What many consider to be 'filler' episodes are actually character studies, because the show took a very deliberate path towards this kind of storytelling several seasons back.
As this show is a cash cow that will rumble on while it's raking in money, there isn't going to be a conclusion for the writers to aim for. I think this is partly why they decided to focus on small character details, rather than providing a showdown each week, which I think makes it more interesting and gives them room for style (Sasha's finale is a prime example).
You can't introduce villains and have them get their comeuppance on a weely basis. The audience will soon tire of it. You can't have increasingly ludicrous zombie attacks on a weekly basis for the same reason.
TWD, like any TV show, has set ups and pay offs. They try to throw in some curveballs along the way, but ultimately they'll end up roughly where you expect.
Chekov's Gun is the best way of describing this - in the first half of the season we saw a cache of weapons, therefore we knew Rick would get his hands on them by the end of the series. There's loads of that in TWD (Sasha's pill is another set up that had to be paid off). The set ups and pay offs aren't the core of the show - they're designed to progress the overarching plot. The rest of the character stuff is really the heart of the show, but many people are salivating for action and don't see it that way.
And because so many characters have super-thick plot armour, there's only so much danger you can put them in before the audience stops feeling any peril for them. Again, they have go inside the characters' heads instead of constantly threatening them from outside.
Filler episodes in TV are actually quite rare, and tend to exist in shows that have either spunked their budgets on a set or action sequence, or shows that had issues in the writers' room. This leads to 'bottle episodes' that tend to be based in one location with no extras required. TWD doesn't do that. They consciously decide to tell interpersonal stories way in advance, but the audience is clamouring for violence and more often than not, gets fed up.
You could fill three full seasons with the amount of filler episodes across the entire TWD series. So much waffle. Don't think I can be arsed with season 8. It's a bit like Charlton's recent history. Started off great (The Powell years) then got progressively terrible until you barely care what happens.
The Powell years started with half a season of awful crap.
The first season of TWD was amazingly good TV.
I have been reading the comics and was disappointed as I genuinely thought we were at a point that was built up in a similar way, but the TV show and Comic are like parallel universes, they're running a similar main spine but the story has deviated so much from what it was originally.
@JiMMy 85 Whilst I get your point, I have to politely point out no one wants a showdown week in week out (well I may be speaking for myself there) what I want from it is progressive story telling. TWD doesn't do this at times. The whole battle we've been building up to all season ended up a couple of fist fights and an awkward couple of shoot outs.
Along with the junkyard woman proving the walking dead can also provide some awful acting at times.
@JiMMy 85 Whilst I get your point, I have to politely point out no one wants a showdown week in week out (well I may be speaking for myself there) what I want from it is progressive story telling. TWD doesn't do this at times. The whole battle we've been building up to all season ended up a couple of fist fights and an awkward couple of shoot outs.
Along with the junkyard woman proving the walking dead can also provide some awful acting at times.
I'd say that plenty of stories progressed over the course of this season. Maggie went from heartbreak to power woman. Multiple groups under the thumb of Neagan rose up together (with the odd twist). Sasha and that other one had an interesting arc that came out of the season premiere events. Morgan and Carol too. There's plenty of progression, but it's called "filler" when TWD do it.
As for the battle - they're clearly leaving it for next season. Maybe that's a bit of a prick tease, but if they'd bumped off Neagan last night that would've been pretty lame too IMO (and yes I do know where this goes in the comics).
I'm not defending the show overall, it's not even close to my favourite on TV. The acting can be woeful and I thought the battle last night looked like actors waving guns around on a set. And the junkyard family was 100% stupid.
It's a show that has lots of issues to deal with, but I don't think "filler" episodes are a problem. I think audience expectation is the biggest one.
The earlier seasons are being celebrated here too which is nuts.
Frank Darabont pulled this show together and at the start, it went well. For season two AMC halved the budget and doubled the episode order. Darabont was being screwed and eventually lost his job. But half the cast were starring in it on the cheap as a favour to him, and either got screwed by AMC or walked (Dale died because of the actor's relationship with Darabont).
They churned through showrunners for years after that and the show became a mess (that I'm sure is being looked upon with rose-tinted specs now - I bet the critics today were the same ones who bitched about the farm season).
@JiMMy 85 Whilst I get your point, I have to politely point out no one wants a showdown week in week out (well I may be speaking for myself there) what I want from it is progressive story telling. TWD doesn't do this at times. The whole battle we've been building up to all season ended up a couple of fist fights and an awkward couple of shoot outs.
Along with the junkyard woman proving the walking dead can also provide some awful acting at times.
Agree with you @Dazzler21. This whole season was basically a build up to a battle that was pretty shite. So now what? We have another season of build up for an equally shit battle?
Maggie's power shift happened over about 3 episodes from memory.
Sasha and Rosita's arc wasn't that interesting. Rosita even said it 'just because we both slept with the same guy, it doesn't make us the same' and then it was constant silence between the two.
I agree the stories have moved on, but maybe it felt worse because the episodes were so mashed together in terms of too many stories going on at any one time.
Each character arc was broken down to be one of about 5 stories going on at once in a single episode. Therefore each arc took weeks to feel like it was progressing.
Previously this was maybe 2 or 3 character arcs max, some characters would even have an episode almost completely to themselves.
At least last night it was nice to see Abraham again, though it was the soppy version no one liked Damn you Sasha
I'm not a comic book/graphic novel reader but because I knew the walking dead was based on one I've gone through them on line to understand who everyone is and also to understand why people are doing some of the things they do. Also in some instances, like rick having his hand chopped off in the comics it adds some more suspense. I'm glad they haven't done that by the way.
It's really intersting to read what @JiMMy 85 has to say as he is obviously in the know and he helps me understand how television shows work behind the scenes.
I think it's brilliant, the suspense is always there and whilst I'm enjoying it so much I hope they continue.
Its a programme featured around a zombie apocalypse for crying out loud, that is just the vehicle though once you suspend your belief. The stories of the characters are what that vehicle is carrying.
For what it's worth of they did all end it with Rick waking up from his coma with his family around him I wouldn't complain
Each character arc was broken down to be one of about 5 stories going on at once in a single episode. Therefore each arc took weeks to feel like it was progressing.
It's no different from Game of Thrones in that sense. I love watching it as much as the next guy, but giving each storyline two scenes per episode made them boil down stories that could have had much more time to come to percolate.
Each character arc was broken down to be one of about 5 stories going on at once in a single episode. Therefore each arc took weeks to feel like it was progressing.
It's no different from Game of Thrones in that sense. I love watching it as much as the next guy, but giving each storyline two scenes per episode made them boil down stories that could have had much more time to come to percolate.
I agree GOT does this in such a wasteful way as well. So much detail is lost from the books.
Like TWD the story no longer fully resembles the original story.
For some reason though in GOT, I don't mind it as much as I know they have fewer episodes in which to cram the story. What is it 7 this coming series and 6 planned for the next? (they originally planned to do the whole lot in 70-75 hours of show time)
Yeah that's true - I guess we are more forgiving because we know they have 100 things to put in, but only 10 hours of screen time to put it into.
Whereas with TWD we are aware that they have 16 hours a year to fill up, and we're not always convinced by what they choose to put in there.
@Carter - Thrones is a really interesting one to look at if you're interested in the structure of a TV show. They decide on a story from the book, then break it down into blocks - they've got 10 hours of screen time, at about 20 scenes per episode (I am guessing, I haven't counted). They can therefore give a particular story X amount of scenes over the season. They know where a character starts, and they know where the character needs to finish. If you were to re-edit the show to just see one storyline at a time, you'd realise how simplistic (that's not quite the right word but I can't think of a better one) the storytelling can be.
I came to TWD quite late and watched many of them in a short space of time. I thought that, a bit like Breaking Bad (that I also watched in one go - up to season four), some of the episodes were so slow that I just wanted I to get to the end and move onto the next, more fast-paced, episode.
Once I got to the point where I had caught up I would find that watching just one episode at a time often felt a bit of a let down. In fact I gave up with about five episodes of season 6 and had decided not to go back to it until I saw on Facebook the preview of S07E01. Then I went back and watched them all but that was hard work - or at least it felt like it.
Now TWD feels like a soap opera to me. There are a number of main characters but they do bring the odd one in for two or three years before killing them off and that does feel a little significant. I thought this season was, probably, clever TV in the way that they developed the obvious battle at the end. Although I thought it jumped about a bit and the Kingdom and the Garbage people seemed to go from nothing to being in it a lot. They didn't even explain, unless I missed it, who the garbage people were or how they found them. They also spoke in broken English like they had learning difficulties, and what was the 'challenge' with the zombie in the metal hat all about? Why would you do that to someone you were going to trade with.
The way the Garbage people changed sides at the last minute seemed like really poor TV, like a last minute decision that they made after they'd filmed the first fifteen episodes. Also, why would the Garbage leader make a comment about 'lying with Rick after' when they were going to double cross him?
And don't get me started on how they dragged out Negen killing Caaaaaarl. It was like the first episode of the season when they 'pretended' that Rick was going to cut off his hand. As I was watching it I was, genuinely, willing to bet my son's life on Caaaaaar's fate. Not only did Negan drag it out with a long threat but even when he took his hat off I knew Caaaaaarl wasn't going to die.
Add to that the fact that even being outnumbered by about five to one none of the main characters got shot when they were standing in the open with machine guns shooting at, and being shot at by, the Garbage people that had, just moments earlier had, at least, three people with guns aimed at them.
Ultimately, as JiMMy says, this show is massive in terms of ratings and is likely to outlive us all just like Eastenders and Coronation Street will. It does just enough to keep people watching, not every episode, but over a whole season. They now have a much bigger cast - including the Kingdom and the Hilltop that they can kill off next season in the 'War' that Negan has declared.
However, I think this cliffhanger was nothing like that season 6 one. I couldn't wait to see who had died when I watched that one. In reality, I am in no rush at all for season 8.
Rosita was hit. Michonne was nearly killed but I knew would survive. I agree on Coral, Caaaaarl
The way the Garbage people changed sides at the last minute seemed like really poor TV, like a last minute decision that they made after they'd filmed the first fifteen episodes. Also, why would the Garbage leader make a comment about 'lying with Rick after' when they were going to double cross him? - Spot on there, i was re-thinking it over and over... it made no sense other than to piss off michonne.
My biggest issue was how, when the Saviours had rounded up Rick and Coral etc in the middle of what seemed to be a fairly large area of open ground inside Alexandria, did the forces of Hilltop and the Kingdom manage to get close enough for a frikkin' tiger to attack without a single Saviour spotting them first?
Thought last night was an improvement on most of the series, at least once they stopped showing boring Sasha and concentrated on the battle. The tiger was cool, and Ezekiel is a massively better leader than Rick.
Still do many daft things in it though:
- Literally no reason for Negan to put Sasha in a coffin beyond it helping the (predictable) 'she's a zombie' plotline.
- Why can't the garbage gang lot talk normally?! Why would a whole community agree to only ever speak like a 2 year old? And why would Rick put all his trust in a group he's just met after everything that has happened?
- Negan deciding to recruit everyone who tries to kill him, and never just killing Rick.
- Why cut the trees down? All it did was allow Negan to be 100% sure he was about to be attacked.
Thought last night was an improvement on most of the series, at least once they stopped showing boring Sasha and concentrated on the battle. The tiger was cool, and Ezekiel is a massively better leader than Rick.
Still do many daft things in it though:
- Literally no reason for Negan to put Sasha in a coffin beyond it helping the (predictable) 'she's a zombie' plotline.
- Why can't the garbage gang lot talk normally?! Why would a whole community agree to only ever speak like a 2 year old? And why would Rick put all his trust in a group he's just met after everything that has happened?
- Negan deciding to recruit everyone who tries to kill him, and never just killing Rick.
- Why cut the trees down? All it did was allow Negan to be 100% sure he was about to be attacked.
Yeah, why not park round the corner and put her in then?
Thought last night was an improvement on most of the series, at least once they stopped showing boring Sasha and concentrated on the battle. The tiger was cool, and Ezekiel is a massively better leader than Rick.
Still do many daft things in it though:
- Literally no reason for Negan to put Sasha in a coffin beyond it helping the (predictable) 'she's a zombie' plotline.
- Why can't the garbage gang lot talk normally?! Why would a whole community agree to only ever speak like a 2 year old? And why would Rick put all his trust in a group he's just met after everything that has happened?
- Negan deciding to recruit everyone who tries to kill him, and never just killing Rick.
- Why cut the trees down? All it did was allow Negan to be 100% sure he was about to be attacked.
- Sasha insisted on going in the coffin. Neagan knew it was good theatrically so didn't argue. - Ezekiel admitted he's a fraud in that he's an actor playing the part of a leader. He's a figure head with very little tactical nous. He is not a better leader than Rick. - The Sasha bits being boring and the tiger eating people being cool is exactly why this show has problems.
Thought last night was an improvement on most of the series, at least once they stopped showing boring Sasha and concentrated on the battle. The tiger was cool, and Ezekiel is a massively better leader than Rick.
Still do many daft things in it though:
- Literally no reason for Negan to put Sasha in a coffin beyond it helping the (predictable) 'she's a zombie' plotline.
- Why can't the garbage gang lot talk normally?! Why would a whole community agree to only ever speak like a 2 year old? And why would Rick put all his trust in a group he's just met after everything that has happened?
- Negan deciding to recruit everyone who tries to kill him, and never just killing Rick.
- Why cut the trees down? All it did was allow Negan to be 100% sure he was about to be attacked.
- Sasha insisted on going in the coffin. Neagan knew it was good theatrically so didn't argue. - Ezekiel admitted he's a fraud in that he's an actor playing the part of a leader. He's a figure head with very little tactical nous. He is not a better leader than Rick. - The Sasha bits being boring and the tiger eating people being cool is exactly why this show has problems.
Rick's 'tactical nous' has, in just the recent past:
- Got them to agree to kill off the Saviours for the Hilltop, despite not knowing a single thing about their size or capabilities, ending up with the Saviours realising Alexandria was there and killing Glenn and Abraham in revenge. - Allied them with a group they know nothing about (if they can even shoot guns, for a start, let alone whether they can trust them), which could have easily got Carl killed last night.
He's been an appaling leader pretty often in order to lead the plot in the desired direction.
Ezekiel made the best of a bad situation once the Saviours attacked them, did the drop-offs on his terms and bided his time for the right time to fight back. He can also control a tiger and get through to Morgan and Carol, which not many others have done recently.
Comments
Although I still find it compelling, this series has been a big disappointment for me when comparing to the high standards set by what's gone before and the finale didn't quite change that, it nearly did but not quite. I know they follow the comics but I would have much preferred slightly less build up to the battle (maybe about 6 episodes less!) and devoting two or three episodes to the battle reaching a pinnacle with Negan and that twat Simon getting eaten slowly by the tiger. Now we've got to wait another six months.
Don't think I can be arsed with season 8.
It's a bit like Charlton's recent history. Started off great (The Powell years) then got progressively terrible until you barely care what happens.
In a show that has 16 episodes a year, I don't think there is much filler. Just an expectation for more action and plot development than a story can possibly sustain. What many consider to be 'filler' episodes are actually character studies, because the show took a very deliberate path towards this kind of storytelling several seasons back.
As this show is a cash cow that will rumble on while it's raking in money, there isn't going to be a conclusion for the writers to aim for. I think this is partly why they decided to focus on small character details, rather than providing a showdown each week, which I think makes it more interesting and gives them room for style (Sasha's finale is a prime example).
You can't introduce villains and have them get their comeuppance on a weely basis. The audience will soon tire of it. You can't have increasingly ludicrous zombie attacks on a weekly basis for the same reason.
TWD, like any TV show, has set ups and pay offs. They try to throw in some curveballs along the way, but ultimately they'll end up roughly where you expect.
Chekov's Gun is the best way of describing this - in the first half of the season we saw a cache of weapons, therefore we knew Rick would get his hands on them by the end of the series. There's loads of that in TWD (Sasha's pill is another set up that had to be paid off). The set ups and pay offs aren't the core of the show - they're designed to progress the overarching plot. The rest of the character stuff is really the heart of the show, but many people are salivating for action and don't see it that way.
And because so many characters have super-thick plot armour, there's only so much danger you can put them in before the audience stops feeling any peril for them. Again, they have go inside the characters' heads instead of constantly threatening them from outside.
Filler episodes in TV are actually quite rare, and tend to exist in shows that have either spunked their budgets on a set or action sequence, or shows that had issues in the writers' room. This leads to 'bottle episodes' that tend to be based in one location with no extras required. TWD doesn't do that. They consciously decide to tell interpersonal stories way in advance, but the audience is clamouring for violence and more often than not, gets fed up.
The first season of TWD was amazingly good TV.
I have been reading the comics and was disappointed as I genuinely thought we were at a point that was built up in a similar way, but the TV show and Comic are like parallel universes, they're running a similar main spine but the story has deviated so much from what it was originally.
Along with the junkyard woman proving the walking dead can also provide some awful acting at times.
As for the battle - they're clearly leaving it for next season. Maybe that's a bit of a prick tease, but if they'd bumped off Neagan last night that would've been pretty lame too IMO (and yes I do know where this goes in the comics).
I'm not defending the show overall, it's not even close to my favourite on TV. The acting can be woeful and I thought the battle last night looked like actors waving guns around on a set. And the junkyard family was 100% stupid.
It's a show that has lots of issues to deal with, but I don't think "filler" episodes are a problem. I think audience expectation is the biggest one.
The earlier seasons are being celebrated here too which is nuts.
Frank Darabont pulled this show together and at the start, it went well. For season two AMC halved the budget and doubled the episode order. Darabont was being screwed and eventually lost his job. But half the cast were starring in it on the cheap as a favour to him, and either got screwed by AMC or walked (Dale died because of the actor's relationship with Darabont).
They churned through showrunners for years after that and the show became a mess (that I'm sure is being looked upon with rose-tinted specs now - I bet the critics today were the same ones who bitched about the farm season).
Sasha and Rosita's arc wasn't that interesting. Rosita even said it
'just because we both slept with the same guy, it doesn't make us the same' and then it was constant silence between the two.
I agree the stories have moved on, but maybe it felt worse because the episodes were so mashed together in terms of too many stories going on at any one time.
Each character arc was broken down to be one of about 5 stories going on at once in a single episode. Therefore each arc took weeks to feel like it was progressing.
Previously this was maybe 2 or 3 character arcs max, some characters would even have an episode almost completely to themselves.
At least last night it was nice to see Abraham again, though it was the soppy version no one liked
It's really intersting to read what @JiMMy 85 has to say as he is obviously in the know and he helps me understand how television shows work behind the scenes.
I think it's brilliant, the suspense is always there and whilst I'm enjoying it so much I hope they continue.
Its a programme featured around a zombie apocalypse for crying out loud, that is just the vehicle though once you suspend your belief. The stories of the characters are what that vehicle is carrying.
For what it's worth of they did all end it with Rick waking up from his coma with his family around him I wouldn't complain
Like TWD the story no longer fully resembles the original story.
For some reason though in GOT, I don't mind it as much as I know they have fewer episodes in which to cram the story. What is it 7 this coming series and 6 planned for the next? (they originally planned to do the whole lot in 70-75 hours of show time)
Whereas with TWD we are aware that they have 16 hours a year to fill up, and we're not always convinced by what they choose to put in there.
@Carter - Thrones is a really interesting one to look at if you're interested in the structure of a TV show. They decide on a story from the book, then break it down into blocks - they've got 10 hours of screen time, at about 20 scenes per episode (I am guessing, I haven't counted). They can therefore give a particular story X amount of scenes over the season. They know where a character starts, and they know where the character needs to finish. If you were to re-edit the show to just see one storyline at a time, you'd realise how simplistic (that's not quite the right word but I can't think of a better one) the storytelling can be.
I came to TWD quite late and watched many of them in a short space of time. I thought that, a bit like Breaking Bad (that I also watched in one go - up to season four), some of the episodes were so slow that I just wanted I to get to the end and move onto the next, more fast-paced, episode.
Once I got to the point where I had caught up I would find that watching just one episode at a time often felt a bit of a let down. In fact I gave up with about five episodes of season 6 and had decided not to go back to it until I saw on Facebook the preview of S07E01. Then I went back and watched them all but that was hard work - or at least it felt like it.
Now TWD feels like a soap opera to me. There are a number of main characters but they do bring the odd one in for two or three years before killing them off and that does feel a little significant. I thought this season was, probably, clever TV in the way that they developed the obvious battle at the end. Although I thought it jumped about a bit and the Kingdom and the Garbage people seemed to go from nothing to being in it a lot. They didn't even explain, unless I missed it, who the garbage people were or how they found them. They also spoke in broken English like they had learning difficulties, and what was the 'challenge' with the zombie in the metal hat all about? Why would you do that to someone you were going to trade with.
The way the Garbage people changed sides at the last minute seemed like really poor TV, like a last minute decision that they made after they'd filmed the first fifteen episodes. Also, why would the Garbage leader make a comment about 'lying with Rick after' when they were going to double cross him?
And don't get me started on how they dragged out Negen killing Caaaaaarl. It was like the first episode of the season when they 'pretended' that Rick was going to cut off his hand. As I was watching it I was, genuinely, willing to bet my son's life on Caaaaaar's fate. Not only did Negan drag it out with a long threat but even when he took his hat off I knew Caaaaaarl wasn't going to die.
Add to that the fact that even being outnumbered by about five to one none of the main characters got shot when they were standing in the open with machine guns shooting at, and being shot at by, the Garbage people that had, just moments earlier had, at least, three people with guns aimed at them.
Ultimately, as JiMMy says, this show is massive in terms of ratings and is likely to outlive us all just like Eastenders and Coronation Street will. It does just enough to keep people watching, not every episode, but over a whole season. They now have a much bigger cast - including the Kingdom and the Hilltop that they can kill off next season in the 'War' that Negan has declared.
However, I think this cliffhanger was nothing like that season 6 one. I couldn't wait to see who had died when I watched that one. In reality, I am in no rush at all for season 8.
Rosita was hit. Michonne was nearly killed but I knew would survive. I agree on Coral, Caaaaarl
The way the Garbage people changed sides at the last minute seemed like really poor TV, like a last minute decision that they made after they'd filmed the first fifteen episodes. Also, why would the Garbage leader make a comment about 'lying with Rick after' when they were going to double cross him? - Spot on there, i was re-thinking it over and over... it made no sense other than to piss off michonne.
Still do many daft things in it though:
- Literally no reason for Negan to put Sasha in a coffin beyond it helping the (predictable) 'she's a zombie' plotline.
- Why can't the garbage gang lot talk normally?! Why would a whole community agree to only ever speak like a 2 year old? And why would Rick put all his trust in a group he's just met after everything that has happened?
- Negan deciding to recruit everyone who tries to kill him, and never just killing Rick.
- Why cut the trees down? All it did was allow Negan to be 100% sure he was about to be attacked.
- Ezekiel admitted he's a fraud in that he's an actor playing the part of a leader. He's a figure head with very little tactical nous. He is not a better leader than Rick.
- The Sasha bits being boring and the tiger eating people being cool is exactly why this show has problems.
- Got them to agree to kill off the Saviours for the Hilltop, despite not knowing a single thing about their size or capabilities, ending up with the Saviours realising Alexandria was there and killing Glenn and Abraham in revenge.
- Allied them with a group they know nothing about (if they can even shoot guns, for a start, let alone whether they can trust them), which could have easily got Carl killed last night.
He's been an appaling leader pretty often in order to lead the plot in the desired direction.
Ezekiel made the best of a bad situation once the Saviours attacked them, did the drop-offs on his terms and bided his time for the right time to fight back. He can also control a tiger and get through to Morgan and Carol, which not many others have done recently.