Why I have stopped caring about The Walking Dead

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Ever since The Walking Dead hit our screens on Halloween 2010, the show has been building a world of bleakness with no real end goal in sight. Based on the hugely popular comic book series of the same name, The Walking Dead on AMC has now become something that neither excites me or interests me.
With season 7’s second half kicking off as of February 12, I have just started to give up. Throughout the past 7 years the series has gone up and down more than a yo-yo.
With the arrival of a major player in the premiere of this latest season (making an impact in their first appearance), I was sure that it was time for everything to be geared up a bit, but alas I was wrong. The prospect of finishing work on a Monday just so I could get home and watch the latest episode was always an exciting thing for me, and in a post/pre-Game of Thrones time of the year I needed something interesting to fill my viewing habits.
The lacklustre start of season 7, combined with the slow pacing, poor scripts and predictable plot turns have just made me realise that The Walking Dead is no longer the front runner in exciting television. With ratings dropping significantly throughout the first half of season 7, the producers, writers and directors have said that they are “toning down” the violence for the second half, probably a mistake but whatever, and that the second half is going to be exciting. Don’t get me wrong, a slow burn is great for a TV series but doing it 7 seasons in? Major mistake.
I wouldn’t say that the acting is terrible, especially from Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Andrew Lincoln, but there are some characters who just need to succumb to a zombie horde or Lucille, namely Carl. Whilst Chandler Riggs has been a long serving member of TWD, his acting and attitude just makes my blood boil.
The episodes when he doesn’t feature are better, not by much but still, to have such a whiney character amidst a cast of strong female and male leads just doesn’t sit right. I know people may disagree (in fact it turns out a whole Instagram page dedicated to the plywood cutout of an actor definitely disagrees, quite vocally) but I just don’t consider him an essential for the series. The character of Carl Grimes is an important player in the comics, but that is proof where the two platforms can differ.
In a world of shows like Vikings, Game of Thrones, Westworld, Better Call Saul and more, The Walking Dead is beginning to trail behind like the slow, brain-munching cash cow that it has become.
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