I mean, take this episode as an example. Carl goes steaming off to Negan's compound, intent on murdering him and putting all of us out of this misery. Yet what happens? Apparently... due to Negan's non-existent charisma, Carl hesitates and doesn't kill him. Dear God, could this writing get any more turgid! So the whole crux of the Negan thing, I imagine, is a personality cult kind of deal. Yet the character has almost no charisma to speak of. Every time you see him on screen you just want to punch him repeatedly. He has no charisma (unless you count the constant, smug grin) and no physical presence with his spindly Jeffrey Dean Morgan body. There is literally nothing to be afraid of about him, other than his psychotic nature. And that isn't anything that a good bullet from literally anyone couldn't fix.
But we are supposed to believe that everyone is deathly afraid of this travesty of a villain and what would happen if they failed to kill him, and also of what would happen if they succeeded? I'm sorry, but Negan is hands down the worst villain to grace the Walking Dead series. But if Negan was the worst of it, I could soldier on until he inevitably gets killed. Sadly, the writing has suffered greatly in other areas.
TWD is now unable to tell a multi-thread story with scenes in each episode from multiple viewpoints. Instead, we get each episode devoted to a particular character or location, to the exclusion of all the others. This wouldn't be so bad, if each of those episode was a full, enjoyable story. But they aren't. Most of this season's episodes can best be described as fifteen minutes of story, padded out to the runtime with pointless nonsense. This padding is reducing the show to a glacial pace that ensures nothing much will happen all season. In short, its making the whole thing boring and reducing investment in the characters dramatically.
Then we have the bizarre personality changes that have plagued most of the series' characters. This began last season, with Carol behaving oddly. Now we have a wimpy Rick. A Carl who was set on murdering Negan, and is now seemingly in awe of him. Any character that acts remotely like you'd expect in this situation (i.e. determined not to live under Negan's thumb) is almost shunned by the others and warned not to rock the boat. What? It is just abysmal at this point. I'm not even going to get started on Ezekiel and his pet tiger.
The best thing that could happen to the show now is a change of showrunners and writers. Get some new blood in that actually cares what happens to the characters, instead of the current mantra of "What new horror can we inflict on them this week?" This adherence to the story lines from the comic books is proving a woefully lamentable choice, especially this season, and it is turning the show from something tense and drama-filled into a farcical shell of what it started out as.
What is more, give the characters a goal, for God's sake! At least when Eugene was lying about a cure there was a sense of purpose to the wandering band. Now they are just shambling along without purpose, lurching from one villain of the season to the next.
It's depressing and boring as hell right now. Quite the opposite of what you hope for in your entertainment. If I want those things, I'll just watch actual news, thank you very much.
SUMMARY: Increasingly laughable Negan scenes devaluing the whole production. Doesn't reward the viewer's time commitment or inspire you to invest in the characters. Nihilism can only take you so far.
But we are supposed to believe that everyone is deathly afraid of this travesty of a villain and what would happen if they failed to kill him, and also of what would happen if they succeeded? I'm sorry, but Negan is hands down the worst villain to grace the Walking Dead series. But if Negan was the worst of it, I could soldier on until he inevitably gets killed. Sadly, the writing has suffered greatly in other areas.
TWD is now unable to tell a multi-thread story with scenes in each episode from multiple viewpoints. Instead, we get each episode devoted to a particular character or location, to the exclusion of all the others. This wouldn't be so bad, if each of those episode was a full, enjoyable story. But they aren't. Most of this season's episodes can best be described as fifteen minutes of story, padded out to the runtime with pointless nonsense. This padding is reducing the show to a glacial pace that ensures nothing much will happen all season. In short, its making the whole thing boring and reducing investment in the characters dramatically.
Then we have the bizarre personality changes that have plagued most of the series' characters. This began last season, with Carol behaving oddly. Now we have a wimpy Rick. A Carl who was set on murdering Negan, and is now seemingly in awe of him. Any character that acts remotely like you'd expect in this situation (i.e. determined not to live under Negan's thumb) is almost shunned by the others and warned not to rock the boat. What? It is just abysmal at this point. I'm not even going to get started on Ezekiel and his pet tiger.
The best thing that could happen to the show now is a change of showrunners and writers. Get some new blood in that actually cares what happens to the characters, instead of the current mantra of "What new horror can we inflict on them this week?" This adherence to the story lines from the comic books is proving a woefully lamentable choice, especially this season, and it is turning the show from something tense and drama-filled into a farcical shell of what it started out as.
What is more, give the characters a goal, for God's sake! At least when Eugene was lying about a cure there was a sense of purpose to the wandering band. Now they are just shambling along without purpose, lurching from one villain of the season to the next.
It's depressing and boring as hell right now. Quite the opposite of what you hope for in your entertainment. If I want those things, I'll just watch actual news, thank you very much.
SUMMARY: Increasingly laughable Negan scenes devaluing the whole production. Doesn't reward the viewer's time commitment or inspire you to invest in the characters. Nihilism can only take you so far.