The Walking Dead - worth the time to watch?

I'm poised to start watching this long-running show and know very little about it. Is it a good watch and is there a classic run of seasons? Has it run its course now or is it worth persevering to its current season? Any thoughts from forum members would be gratefully appreciated.

 

IMO, TWD ran out of gas at least a couple seasons ago. It used to be a great show and for a variety of reasons, it stopped being great. I thought the latest villain, Negan, would bring the show back on course, but it managed to get even worse. I watched the first half of the previous season and I just haven't had the desire to finish the second half. When I opened the most recent TWD thread here, it doesn't sound like I missed much. The show still has its defenders, of course, but I think you'll just need to dig in and see what you think. I think at least the first 3 or 4 seasons are very, very good.

 

Season 1 Episode 1: Great
Rest of season 1: Pretty Good
Season 2: Decently interesting at times still
Season 3: Pretty bad and from here it just gets worse.

I would instead recommend YMS review of the series and why it turned to shait:

 

Considering the putrid garbage which occupies other channels on Sunday nights, it may be your best option.

 

I find it entertaining right up to and including the last season. Yes very much worth the watch. I think the cry baby opposition to the final seasons are unfounded.

Fear the Walking Dead on the other hand is getting iffy to me, but then again, it is unfinished. The next half of the season will be crucial.

So in closing, if you keep an open mind, don't look at spoilers and just enjoy the story where it takes you, I think you are in for a very wild ride.

p.s. Never read anywhere that Season 3 was bad? The Prison and the Governor was AWESOME. Not following this logic at all.

 

I stopped watching a few seasons ago. It was a show in which nothing really happened. They didn't go anywhere... and the story rarely advanced from season to season. Most of the people I know that still watch do so out of habit... they've been watching for years... so they have to find out how it ends.

You can get several years of entertaining zombie fluff out of it. I did. I'm one of those that'll pretty much sit through anything with zombies. But if you want this story in a nutshell... it's this: zombie apocalypse. Watch out for zombies. They're bad. So... try to survive. But watch out for people too. Because the fight for survival can mean people are bad too.

There you go. That was an eight season summary for you.

 

WD: Seasons 1-4 worthwhile, 5-6 starting to decline, 7-8 quite poor
FTWD: 1-2 iffy, 3 very entertaining, 4 horrible

 

Once your hooked, you gotta keep watching!

 

The show really changed, and not for the better, following the ouster of original developer Frank Darabont. He had a completely different idea of how the show should evolve. I still do think that the first few seasons are more than worth a watch. When you hit approximately Season 5, be wary.


Dan

 

It peaked during the 2nd-3rd season. Been steadily declining ever since. This show is definitely WAY past it's expiration date! Currently, the show's undeniably really, really bad. Only being kept afloat by its (dwindling) legion of fans. Even the lead actor's got one foot out the door, he knows it's time!

 

If only it were that 'zombies are bad' as a major plot points. I rather have the zombie drama than the sheer torture of people drama.

 

I never minded the violence. It was expected in this sort of show. But I can see how it might turn some off. It's biggest sin was lack of any real movement in plot.

 

Yeah not following this logic. So you don't watch, but then you say "it didn't go anywhere". Not agreeing at all that I watched the show because I did so out of habit. I watched the show religiously because my wife and I thoroughly enjoy it and actually saw the final episode in the theater. The segue into Fear the Walking Dead was really amazing, and the audience cheering was something to behold.

But getting back to your remarks, reminds me of people that complained about the Daryl and Beth episode or the Morgan learning to be who he is episode (no spoilers please)....and saying...uh nothing happened.

Yeah ok.... Sorry but if there is one thing that Walking Dead does, it actually explains characters and makes you CARE. This is why 7 and 8 turned some people off, because it is as if they had become little fan followers to the point of anything that takes away from their fantasy of characters living forever (again, one should respect NO DARN SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) that they throw little fits if they don't like a result.

For instance, in the "nothing really happened" regards, I think of the Beth Greene episodes where she spends time at the the hospital and it actually having an awesome story line where it for-shadows the hate that is coming in season 9. Yeah not following this at all.

I don't know how anyone can summarize what they haven't seen?

One of the most fantastic moments is Carl in Season 8 acting like Fiver in Watership Down when he is talking to Negan (again NO DARN SPOILERS!!!!). I never ever heard so much belly aching over nothing. But yet how many times did I hear people go....yeah the show sucks...but never even watched the final seasons? It is like a group think mentality vs the actual truth.

Yup see above. "zombies are bad" only gets old real fast. Ask anyone about Hershel Greene and anyone that actually watched the show, is going to talk about how they felt for him and all he did for the survivors.

Then again, I also think about the Governor story and how he became who he was (like General Woundwort in Watership Down)...yeah not following any of this.

First of all, these "dwindling numbers" are not actually based on any reality. Look at all the people that praise season 1 and 2, and yet the last season average was beyond that in live viewership alone.

However, what is ignored is the fact that like a lot of tv shows, people are DVR'ing more and more because of needing to pay bills, the growing number of streaming services and all that.

So let us go back to the truth after factoring DVR viewers the average audience for season 8 was 11 million + Walking Dead was the second most DVR'd show of 2017, I am going out on a limb that it was the most DVR'd show of 2018 since the only show that beat it out is now cancelled.

In case one has missed the news, not only is the main member not signed back on, but neither is another major. Has one not studied the history of the show? Major characters are constantly killed off and it was just a matter of time. As someone that watches the show and every single extra that comes with it, you can see Robert Kirkman and Scott Gimple just salivating at the show and how they shake up viewers. If one is actually following the storyline, the changes that are being made you could see coming a mile away.

But again, it is a requirement that one actually follows the show so one is not actually talking from ignorance.

So out of the people I quoted who has actually been following every single episode?

YUP. I say a step further, once one has gone through all the extras and seen the backbone of the entire series it is even more so. The Webisodes and actor and creator interviews are just icing on the cake.

Though one small note, the typical making of episodes are only on the non-usa blurays for season 3 of Fear the Walking Dead, while the american one has deleted scenes. The rare case where you have to get both to see it all!

To the OP, I say, just see it all and make your own judgment. If one sees it and then complains, ok, but I have to say, for the ones that I know that watch the show in its entirety, there are no complaints.

 

if you have any interest in the source material-the graphic novels-go for it. though it has changed to the point of being disappointing at times, i still never miss an episode. but now that a couple of more major players seem to be on the way out, we'll see.

 

I am actually strangely looking forward to it. The Whisperers I hear is a good story (no spoilers please), and the change with the major characters has been rewarding in the past. I hope it is that same trajectory because I absolutely loved how the show ended as of late. The set-up was just crazy!

 

I don't know exactly when it jumped the shark but the first few seasons were very good IIRC. It declined the last few seasons but it took me laughing hysterically at Coral's death to make me finally quit. I realized I was no longer invested in the characters and the storylines were all over the place.

 

*update, edited to cut down on emotion. lol

Do you really want me to go there? Here is one....Morgan states he doesn't want to go with Rick. Ummm....it wasn't about shooting, it was about dealing with his wife (I guess the viewer missed the plot point?).

Oh wait, now this fool is going on about how flesh cannot be ripped apart by a hundreds of dead zombies that have no feelings? First of all in case the critic missed it, they have teeth because they are human. A mouth can bite down with the force ratio of up to 200 psi. An unfeeling Zombie...probably more than that. The flesh of a horse not an issue. There are actually some humans that have been recorded as having a bit force of 900 psi. A human skull takes about 500 psi, so not following that taking a few bites out of a horses skin and then ripping back is some kind of issue....then again, this genius is comparing that to breaking glass windows. Yeah not following the logic there.

Then again, I was watching his further logic that some characters dying was "oh so predictable". As someone that watched the show live, it was actually pretty ground breaking and no one was expecting the deaths....yeah stopping there. The youtube link is another looking back warrior that only criticizes because he likely watched after seeing every spoiler possible. Not buying it for one second.

Wow, gotta love the spoiler people. Nice warning there, not only do you have less respect for the show but you don't respect a new viewer asking about the merits of seeing it.

 

Not really what I would call a spoiler, just one viewers opinion. spoilers for me give away A LOT more detail than that.

 

I didn't quote the spoiler, go back and read the original post.

 

it's annoyingly wonderful ride...watch it. : )

 

First season was great, then Darabont left, it turned into a soap opera that was fitfully entertaining (seasons 2 and 3, parts of season 4) and then became mostly a soap opera with zombies. I checked out and never came back after the premier of season 7, which is where the "let's abuse the audience" attitude of the producers was too much for me.

You may enjoy it for awhile though. There are certainly good things along the way. If, like me, you begin to feel that they're padding 8 episodes of plot into 16 episodes, you'll probably want to bail.

 

You seem to not follow others logic often. When people think it's bad, some stop watching. If you like it, great. Most posters here say it's turned to crap. I didn't like it that much when I watched it. So I stopped. And I said that in my reply to the OP. I could care less if you understand why. Stop challenging other people's opinion.

 

I've seen every episode & the first, we'll say four season, were pretty good. It's gotten so bad since then that it's evolved more into self parody then anything scary or even entertaining for me. Terrible acting, cheesy special effects (except for the zombies), and scripts & dialogue that, I assume, were written by monkeys with typewriters. At this time I have no intentions of watching next season.

 

Sorry to learn your video recorder only works on Sunday nights, only on network stations and never on streaming services like Amazon Prime, Netflix or on-demand offerings EVERY cable company offers its' customers.

Or...maybe we should bid you to explain why the only thing you can recieve in your house is "putrid garbage". That might just help understand your answer.

More to the point of the OP's question, now that I've seen what's happened so far, I don't think I would have started watching, knowing that. I have this terrible sense of loyalty to series I start out liking, because most of my fare are not sequential shows, but shows that tell one story over a number of episodes.

The closest thing I get to shows you could watch singularly and still get most of it, would be CBS dramas and procedurals inside of the first, say, four seasons of their tenure. By that time, everything in the show becomes something you have to keep track of endlessly, or you feel you're missing something. But at any rate, I prefer a long-form story with a conclusion worthy of the time I've put into watching the progression of the show. Not shows who just park their characters in place, awaiting some nebulous promise of a "movie" or something, to wrap things up.

If you're looking for something epic to watch, look for people who write about shows you think are epic, and take their advice. Chances are, you won't hear many of them talking about Walking Dead by now.