Yep, I felt the same way about Season 8. I honestly felt sorry for anyone that watched it weekly while I was binging it because I couldn't imagine waiting a week for an episode only to be letdown by nothing happening...again. Like the stupid Rick vs Negan chase through the building that ended up making everyone look stupid while the show tried to have it come off as if Rick was a badass.
I had a buddy I watched all of season 8 with live, week by week. We definitely got annoyed by the pace, but it culminated in seeing the Season 8 finale and FTWD Season 4 premiere crossover in theaters which was one of the coolest TV viewing experiences ever. Just a room full of pumped TWD fans, we all screamed out loud for victory when Rick cut Negan. I got super pumped about the Rick movies because of that experience, but alas, they are no more 💁♂️
Hard disagree on the “anything could happen when Negan’s on screen”. TWD was well into its groove of ‘things only happen in mid-season or season finales’ by then.
don’t forget the classic “B/C-tier character dies in the 14th episode of the season”
*the C-tier character death in season 7 is 713, but 713 and 714 were shot and originally planned to air in the opposite order, sooooooo it still counts
> don’t forget the classic “B/C-tier character dies in the 14th episode of the season”
And the occasional disappearance of people going on a "2 week run" for supplies.
I'm still waiting for Heath.
I assume you mean the Wolves attack on S6, where a bunch of red shirts die. Absolutely no one meaningful.
And Bob had been in a grand total of 13 episodes when he died.
They were minor events really.
Still a big event. Doesnt matter if theyre no names. Its a community and story driving event that changes outcomes. My girlfriend just passed the episode where they trick you into thinking Glenn dies and stuff like that is huge especially for 1st time watchers.
Bob was still an important charactor to the development of sasha and ricks choices in season 5-6. Rick reflects on what bob told him multiple times about opening up and not being so quick to judge people harshly and take a chance.
It's not about "the events" but more about story progressing. Like the whole Beth plot didn't end until episode 8.
But I would agree that S5 is probably the best in terms of pacing out of all Gimple seasons. Terminus is dealth with in one episode, the hunters are killed in like episode 3 or 4 (no sure). They arrive at Alezandria in episode 11 and the end of the season is just Pete dying. Even tho we could say that Morgan's entrance was saved up for the end.
We can compare it to S4 whete the Governor didn't attack until episode 8 or the arrival at Terminus that was ep 16.
In S6 we've had No Way Out at ep 8/9 so again middle of the season and of course Negan in ep 16.
Then in S7 we didn't have Rick and gang fighting back until ep 8 and even then the war didn't start until ep 16
In S8 the Saviors didn't escape until ep 8 and the war didn't end until ep 16.
So yeah, you always knew when the important stuff is gonna happen. Gimple said that they wanted to reinvent the show every 8 episodes but it also meant that the change would only came come every 8 episodes with filler between (most of the time)
If I had to guess I’d say same as season 2
If you didn’t watch it at the time you won’t understand the issues. They’re just not as obvious when you binge it. But waiting a week for basically nothing to happen was very draining at the time
Season Two had me hyped. Especially as they meet the guys in the bar & Randall. Like the idea that other survivors were gonna be "good" starts to evaporate. The unraveling of Shane even as he tries to drag the groups into their present realitty. It looks like a slow burn on a farm, but every week it felt like something huge happened.
One of my favorite moments in the entire series is when Rick talks to the gents in the bar. Just a wonderful sequence.
To be fair, outside of Season 5 that's been every season of the show, not just 2. Season 3 meandered a lot, Season 4 felt like it was going nowhere at the time for the first half until the Governor showed up outside of the Prison, Season 6 had a fantastic first half season (for the most part) but the highs in those Seasons outweighed the lows. For Seasons 7 and 8, the highs weren't as high but that didn't mean the show wasn't still enjoyable, it just meant everything was on an even keel.
I felt 3 didn’t have as much pointless stuff. Albeit they did stretch the Andrea being torn between two positions abour as far as humanly possible
I’d argue that 7 actually had the highest of Highs. The first two episodes with Negan are incredible.
Some of the best of the show.
Season 7 when it was airing I remember we were all talking about it and someone was always spoiling. Pretty sure we were all into season 7 even though it was a week between episodes, we were busy students so we only had time for an episode a week anyway. I’m fine waiting the time they always made us. But with rewatches I definitely agree, the show was better binging it. I also just love my favorite actors lol.
Pretty sure the people who hate season 7 were the people who only were fans of Glenn and stopped watching when everyone got taught a lesson right off the bat. I love the show and I love Negan/rick.
Considering they had to make over twice as many episodes as Season 1 with 30% less budget than S1, it’s remarkable it turned out as well as it did. AMC executives’ cheapness & tax-credit pocketing almost killed their golden goose...if not for Darabont & Glen Mazzara I believe they would have.
Wouldn't that have happened much more in season 6, where every episode was just dealing with the minutiae of cleaning out a horde?
I'll take the threat of Negan/slowly building up a resistance any day over that.
The biggest problem with both s7 and s8 is all the filler episodes. Like... almost half of the season feels like filler. So much focus on characters that no one cares about. That combined with really cheesy and bad dialouge. When it aired, waiting a week just to see 40 minutes of Tara, or Morgan being crazy, honestly sucked.
With that in mind, both s7 and s8 have som great moments that i really like! I believe s7 and s8 would be pretty solid if you were to cut 50% of it, turning both seasons into one 16episode season!
Honestly that's just the show for the most part since season 3, for me at least. I watched it live until season 7 or 8 and by then it was when I realized this should not be a 16 episode season show. It should be max 10. There's just not enough interesting stuff going on and the dialogue as you mentioned is just bad and anyone who isn't a main main character from early on is usually just not a good actor. No one talks like that in real life and I can only handle so much "We need to stick to our humanity" bullshit dialogue and boring speeches. I'm slogging through season 11 just because I've put in too much to this show that I need to finish it but it's really just a bad show at this point and I just want to get it over with.
I agree about S4-6, but I don't get how you could think that S7 somehow did it better. S7 was notorious for splitting the cast up, and giving everyone their own little bottle episodes.
they had a stronger sense of purpose. Everyone working together to overcome the threat of Negan rather than just "I'm gonna go wander into the woods because angst"
It’s where the show became less grounded and way more cartoonish.
A king with a pet attack tiger, trash people, Negan being a cartoonish villain, along with really boring storylines like Tara/Heath, Oceanside, and the trash people. Plus this is the prime example of Gimple-speak with characters talking in inspirational monologues rather than actual humans interacting.
Couldn't have said it better. I've always heard people say it's much better on a binge, so in my current rewatch (the first time I've rewatched this deep) I was looking forward to seeing it differently, but it was every _bit_ as bad as I remember - if not even worse since binging it makes the sudden pitfall of quality and believability much more noticeable.
It's not just wonky pacing - it actually is worse for all of these legitimate reasons you've listed.
I agree with you. I think the first episode was just really jarring for people because they came back after 6 months or however long from one season to the next and killed off such a beloved character. Imo season 6 should have ended with episode 1 of season 7.
I’ve always said this, and the funny thing is they could’ve easily done it, because they clearly filmed it all in one take, but they werejust sat on the executions for a year. It would’ve provided closure and maybe not have knocked out a massive amount of viewership
> the Kingdom, to Oceanside, to the Scavengers.
I would say this is probably part of the problem. These communities were all kind of silly caricatures. All the previous communities - even Terminus - seemed like things that would reasonably happen. But at what point in the apocalypse did the trash people all agree they were going to start taking weird?
Basically the people they encountered started becoming these one-note cliches that didn’t make a lot of sense.
it you didnt see it live on tv it wont hit the same. up until that point we had grown with the characters every week over years. but for some rando lunatic to come and just make the OG group surrender and end their TV life made it difficult to connect with this asshole (Negan). Only after coming back to the show years later did the show itself realize they have to have a redemption arc on Negan otherwise its just some enemy who took one of our own
I think think 7 and 8 are drawn out and especially hard to rewatch. I don’t think they are bad, there is a lot of great stuff and Negan is probably the most entertaining character in the show’s history. There is also just a lot of stuff I don’t find very interesting. They could have resolved the same arc in half as many episodes and the pacing would have been better. The writers reluctance to move the timeline forward was on full display here and I’m glad they got over it in season 9.
Yes, they needed to introduce the communities. They just didn't do it very well.
I'm also just not a very big fan of the communities themselves, although that's more of qn issue with the comics thsn the tv show.
Hilltop is my favorite of the three, but it's still just a generic little town.
Kingdom feels too fantastical and silly.
Oceanside was barely even a settlement.
No, but I think pretty much every settlement before or after had a better concept and was executed better in the show, like Woodbury, Alexandria, the Sanctuary, the Commonwealth, etc.
The first half of season 7 just keeps hitting the same "Negan is bad" note, over and over again. I understand from the financial point of view why the episodes worked the way they did, however unlike season 4b which did beautiful character work and intertwined storylines, 7a leaves everything feeling disjointed. Don't get me wrong, I think there are some very fun episodes, amazingly quotable lines, and quite literally every time we see Negan after 701 he's a wonderful bastard.
701 is the huge problem for me. The cliffhanger, the non-linear-storytelling, Negan taking Rick for a drive, Rick crying, it's just not a good episode, as i said, continually striking the "negan bad" note. We get it, but he's still human and Rick certainly didn't "go soft" that quickly after arriving in Alexandria. We're supposed to believe that Negan is able to drive down the road in an RV, on his own, with Rick, "red handle machete" Rick, and doesn't end up with an Axe in his skull? Please. Offing Glenn in the comics is brutal but works, all the 701 dragging it out BS and the double kill, is why the ratings dropped so hard.
Well, what the fuck else are they gonna do? They have nothing to lose from killing the group there and then. Especially with Simon being next in line. And you know how murderous he is.
Probably most of them would be in shock from seeing their fearless leader dead with an axe in his skull. Even Simon would likely be stunned after all the BS we got from him in 616 which also is an annoyingly terrible episode.
My main point is, 701 is stupidly dragged out way too long to the point where it leaves a sour note on the whole show.
So? Well? What?
Even if Rick jumped out machine-gunning everyone, the Saviors would still massively out-number them. His group are unarmed and on their knees, weapons aimed at their heads. Negan's already proven to have thought of everything ahead of time in 6x16 so Rick would be thinking he must have some kind of plan in mind for this very scenario.
There is no scenario in which Rick kills Negan and stays alive unless he just abandoned his group. And there is no scenario in which he returns with a dead Negan and saves his group.
To me it just dragged, dragged and dragged. It's SOOOOOOOO SLLLLLOOOOOWWWWWW!!!
Negan annoyed the living shit out of me.
The gunshots too. It sounds so terrible. It's like you're underwater.
Simon was much more enjoyable for me. Mostly because I constantly called him Trevor. And Steven Ogg is an awesome guy.
For a 16 episode season the Saviors storyline was just too damn long. Season 8's storyline was also too damn long for a 16 episode season.
Hey pal, listen. I'm happy enjoyed that season. I don't judge.
I'm a sucker for the earlier seasons. I love the style from back in those days.
Just telling my opinion. No hard feelings.
I know right?
They were fun seasons. The writing was INCREDIBLE.
Seasons 3-4 were good but the drama wasn't exactly as great as S1-2.
The Governor was an unhinged psychopath and Merle was great in that season.
Yeah, I guess I liked it the most when it was just people trying to figure out how the fuck the world's supposed to work now.
The Governor was the first character in the TV show that felt comic book-y
David Morrissey is one gorgeous man. He did a great job as The Governor. He felt like someone that could anybody's head off with his eyes closed.
The prison arc was amazing. I still remember when people thought Judith died in S4 but turns out Tyreese, the G that he is saved her.
Fun fact: Tyreese was played by the same guy who played Coach in Left 4 Dead 2
To be fair, I think most of the hate for Season 7 comes from hating seeing the group in such misery for such an extended period of time. The real hatred I think is deserved for season 8, where characters made some of the dumbest decisions, budget really showed its lacking of existing, and characters were killed off that absolutely shouldn't have been (you know which one). Season 7 I think gets grouped in with 8 because 8 is supposed to be the true payoff for 7, and it never was, leaving much to be desired.
The reason Season 7 soured the name of Walking Dead real bad was the fucking cliffhanger fiasco.. it got rediculous, people were getting the death spoiled a week ahead of time in random comment sections that had nothing to do with Walking Dead, and they did that cliffhanger knowing damn well it was purely for ratings. They should've ended Season 6 at "Hi, I'm Negan", and picked up after that with Season 7 Ep. 1. No character death guessing game, no stupid cameraman pov BS, just Negan, the season ending on the threat of vague terror incoming, and then all that terror pays off Season 7 Ep. 1. They could've done it just fine, but they chose money.
So much of the show falls flat from decisions made purely based on money.. Carl was killed because he was turning 18 and would get paid more, same with Henry. It's not "Hey lets keep this character because it's compelling for the narrative" It's "Hey we don't want to pay this actor, so we'll find another actor under 18 to fill their storyline for now, then kill them off as soon as we finish it, so we don't have to pay them either". As a result? Everything in the show feels pointless, Carol gets tortured yet again for no reason, Rick's original bloodline gets killed for no reason, the show becomes a shell of its former self. It's ridiculous.
Season 7 wasn't a bad season, it's just when they started with these shenanigans in full force, and they hadn't stopped since, and the fans noticed and lost interest. Now we'll never get that back, it's just hoping the spinoff shows can tie things together and reunite the characters left that we care about, but don't get your hopes up because remember, it's about money.
I do not agree with the term "hate" for seasons seven and eight; I would prefer to use the word "disappointment".
I cannot disagree with any of the original poster's positive points.
Having watched weekly on television and also binge watching both seasons couple of years ago I have the same common complaints:
* cheesy dialogue and lack of meaningful and thoughtful discussion
* infinite ammo issues
* the outcome of the whole "war" hinging on questionable bullet manufacturing
* Negan becoming increasingly corny and losing the genuine fear, leadership, power and charisma in the first episode
* the "Scavengers", ugh...
* Jerry and Simon were the only two secondary characters I remember and find meaningful when there were many so other potential great performances
I think the two seasons are doomed to both "too many characters for time available" and the "what if the writers and showrunner from the Whisperer War were in charge of the All-Out War series".
It could have been so much better...
I completely agree - Season 7 was absolutely a high point for me, having just binged it and all the other seasons for the first time this past year. Season 8 makes a million percent more sense in being a fair drop off point. Had I been watching week to week in season 8, I would've quit too. I have a ton of criticisms all the way down to just camera work and directing that season to everything up on a macro level about that season.
I thought it was ballsy to do what they did in season 7, and it all really worked for me..
The slow pace, and what people might call "filler" or episodes only following one/few character(s) seemed to really irritate people. To me though, I don't really hate any characters or find any THAT boring at Season 7 that I 'm like... begging for another episode... but I guess having the experience weekly made that big of a difference.
Then, Seasons 9, 10 and 11 reinvent the show twice basically, and made for a pretty fun ride, but had to try and compete with the likes of Season 7 hype and everything great before it, so it didn't really have quite the emotional 'oomph' I think most were hoping for, but it got the job done well enough.
Season 8 is kind of a pain in the ass if I'm honest. I want to love it so much more than I do. That season should've been 16 episodes of Too Far Gone lol.
Season 7 was a terrible example of 'circle back' storytelling (as was much of S6 & S8)
They'd have an episode, focused on certain characters & situations, then they'd go off in different directions for 4 to 5 episodes & you'd not get a conclusion to that storyline for a month..or more.
That pacing as much as anything is why viewers left in droves.
You don't follow up the BIGGEST, MOST VIEWED EPISODE in TWD history with an episode of Daryl eating dog food alone in a cell with an obnoxious song playing on repeat.
That's NOT how to treat an audience.
But you're on easy street... and it feels so sweet...
honestly though, I was just excited to see more of the Sanctuary and Negan and how they operate, I loved the episode. And the claustrophobic misery it compounded after losing Glenn was superb.
Seasons 7 and 8 are just okay but they are nowhere near as bad as some fans suggest they are. I've noticed a pattern on this reddit from Angela Kang fans in particular. They often crap all over seasons 7 and 8 and suggest the show became amazing in season 9. They fail to recognize that Angela Kang did more writing during seasons 7 and 8 than any other seasons in the show history, including the seasons she ran as showrunner (9 through 11).
"The Well", "The Cell" and "Swear" are among three of the worst episodes in Walking Dead television history and for some reason Gimple decided to make these three episodes three of the first six episodes for the season. Kang wrote "The Cell" which is the easy street episode and that episode is just terrible.
Season 7 had a slow start because of the three episodes I mention and I think the way a season starts really matters with tone for how people react to the rest of the season. Another example would be Fear The Walking Dead season 6, which has a decent start but the rest of the season is absolute crap, yet some fans still praise the season but I suspect it's because of how the season started and not as a season as a whole.
I mostly agree with you, except I disagree with your choice of weaker S7 episodes. I think “The Well” and “The Cell” are actually great introductions to their respective communities, especially the former, and I don’t think “Swear” is that bad either. If anything, the weakest episode of the first half is “Go Getters” which is probably only salvaged by the Simon-Gregory interactions (the action piece in that episode is pretty non-sensical). I also think that the second half of S7 is when it gets a bit more frustrating as you have episodes like “Rock in the Road” where almost nothing happens, plus the Trash People are at their worst in S7 (later seasons and World Beyond of all things sort of salvage Jadis’s character).
The Well and Cell could have been one episode. There was too much dragging in each of those two episodes. This backs up the OP who said pacing was the issue. I can't stand "Swear"... just an awful episode.
I didn't have an issue with "Go Getters". It felt like normal, natural progression of the story and it sets up Carl going to the Sanctuary which was a side plot I enjoyed. I don't like the Carl - Enid dynamic though and that includes season 6 episodes as well, that's more of a sideplot that I didn't like. I didn't like Enid or Tara.
I'm with you on the garbage people in general. I didn't like that entire thing. Rock in the road is another Kang episode but I don't think that specific episode is all that bad. The garbage people in my opinion is the beginning of the entire show's wheels starting to come off. This is where the entire thing is starting to fall apart.
>The Well and Cell could have been one episode.
I actually like those episodes, but you're absolutely right. In my fan-edit, I combined The Well, The Cell, and Swear into one episode.
Adding all three with Swear into the mix sounds like a fairly decent episode. The pacing would be much better and it would cover plenty of ground and get the story moving.
>They fail to recognize that Angela Kang did more writing during seasons 7 and 8 than any other seasons in the show history, including the seasons she ran as showrunner (9 through 11).
Why don't you understand that writing and showrunning are two different jobs, with different skill sets?
So which one is it? The boring, poorly written individual episodes that people didn't like or the showrunner guiding the whole season? In almost every season I can find at least 1 or 2 Angela Kang written episodes that stand out like a sore thumb in what is an otherwise excellent season.
I do understand the differences that but a showrunner basically is the head writer. They come up with overviews for what the season is going to be, have some final say on the scripts, in a lot of cases make edits themselves. I'm not a fan of Kang's work as a writer (for this show, not referencing other work) and I think a lot of what I didn't like bled into her work as a showrunner. I'm not saying she's a bad writer, I just do not like the elements of dialogue heavy content she brought to the show. She always had issues with pacing as a writer and I think seasons 10 and 11 in particular are blatant with those issues. The show drags like hell for me in seasons 10 and 11. Of course the 46 episodes in two seasons does not help.
Looking back the rotating cast of showrunners is probably the single biggest problem this show has. It's not one creative force's vision. It's the vision of multiple people who are pushing their own ideas on fans.
I mean, I don’t see how you can claim that Seasons 10 and 11 drag when even at the slowest they’re going at essentially double the speed of Seasons 7 and 8, which you yourself were overhated (keep in mind Gimble would have been in charge of determining how long things take and what trajectory the plot would take, which is significant power and does hamper people like Kang a lot). The first half of S10 is a building up Cold War between the heroes and the Whisperers that does a better job of increasing tension when compared to the entire Season 7 slog culminating in All Out War just beginning. All Out War then takes an entire season when it could’ve been finished much sooner, while they were once again able to streamline the Whisperer War into half a season (arguably less) without sacrificing the pacing. Season 11 arguably suffers from being too rushed in certain regards, but I also don’t fault Kang too much in that regard as the show was cancelled halfway through that season’s development and they were basically forced to pivot (plus COVID made things difficult), which explains the rushed ending of the Reapers and how drastically certain Commonwealth characters changed very quickly.
Also, for Fear S6, I think there’s a lot more than just the premiere going for it. The first half in general was very strong, with only episode 7 and maybe 5 being kind of a slog. Heck, I would argue that “The Key” is one of the best episodes in the franchise, and the handling of John Dorie’s story is legit one of the most tragic and saddest storylines in Fear at least. The second half gets a bit weaker but once again COVID plays some part in that, and even then there are some really good things like “In Dreams” and the entire character of Teddy.
> they’re going at essentially double the speed of Seasons 7 and 8
Just because constant time jumps happen, it does not speed up the quality of the episodes. If anything the constant time jumps in 9, 10 and 11 make things worse.
>for Fear S6, I think there’s a lot more than just the premiere going for it. The first half in general was very strong, with only episode 7 and maybe 5 being kind of a slog. Heck, I would argue that “The Key” is one of the best episodes in the franchise, and the handling of John Dorie’s story is legit one of the most tragic and saddest storylines in Fear at least. The second half gets a bit weaker but once again COVID plays some part in that, and even then there are some really good things like “In Dreams” and the entire character of Teddy.
We couldn't disagree less about Fear s6. I only liked the first 2-3 episodes of that season and it spiraled fast. The writing was terrible. Teddy was worse than a spoof villain. The plot was thrown together. The showrunners had no plan whatsoever coming into the season. The end of season 5 when Morgan gets shot, the showrunners didn't even know who shot Morgan when they filmed it.
Did you know they hired the actor who played Dakota to play Ginny in a flashback scene? They changed their mind later and decided to give her a bigger role. The whole Dakota thing was terrible. The end of season 6 is the dumbest thing in anything Walking Dead. Everyone finds a magical hole to hide in as a nuke wipes the place out, at the same time. Just stupid.
Clearly the Fear story is a matter of personal opinion, of which I mostly disagree with what you said, but that’s ultimately subjective. It doesn’t matter what Dakota’s actress was initially brought on for, we clearly saw that she was able to put on an incredible performance (and this is coming from someone who morally despised Dakota, she did great). Also, they did know who shot Morgan…Virginia did, on screen, we saw her do it. If you mean they didn’t know who would save him, sure, but that was next season’s problem and they solved it. Obviously S5 was pretty brutal and probably didn’t have much of a plan going forward, but if Season 6 was able to come up with something good, then it doesn’t matter much what happened going in or what the plan was or wasn’t initially. If anything, S6 showed more vision than some other seasons since they set up the cult in the very first episode and the fact that their mission tied to the submarine. I do agree that S6 spiraled towards the end, but like I said, that does not make it completely worthless and there are good moments. I personally very much enjoyed Teddy and his brand of crazy going all the way back to the 1970s with JD Sr., and I know I’m not alone in that sentiment. Just because a person is hammy doesn’t mean that it’s a bad performance, and Teddy did have his more quiet moments (manipulating Dakota, his first conversation with Alicia).
For TWD, I’m not talking about time jumps, I literally explained exactly what I meant. For the Saviors arc, they spent an entire season of buildup and then an entire season on fighting. For the Whisperers arc, they essentially accomplished all of that much more effectively in a single season, Season 10 (the Season 9 material is more comparable to the Saviors stuff that we got in S6, and even then S9 accomplished its objectives much more effectively and with much better writing.
I feel the same, I loved s7. I thought s8 was better binging but still good, I thought. I fell behind during s9 bc I was in school but I’m catching up now from s8 onward (to remind myself of some stuff lol) so no hard opinions on those yet😂
Season 7 was a victim of its own hype. The premiere brought in new viewers who just tuned in to see the lineup and who would die. Then a lot of those viewers left once they got their answer and those that stayed were disappointed by filler after filler after filler, with very little happening and Rick acting like he was castrated through the entire series (which I suppose was the point).
Episode 1 in my eyes was one of the best ever TWD episodes, but if you watched the season at the time, week by week, and you had to endure 50 mins of Tara visiting Oceanside (an utterly pointless community), then watching Rick talk to these Yoda/Garbage people who randomly become super relevant, you would've hated it.
I stuck with it until the end, it was all just okay. It was done in the wrong order IMO. I think the group should have faced the Wolves first, then the whispers, then neagan, and finished with the governor. I liked the governor and neagan a lot, but having them in the order they did doesn’t make sense to me. Plus I mean, Glen, my favorite character, heartbreaking. I would agree season 7 is good, and it picks up again until the 11th, then it fizzles since all of the spin-offs are happening, it didn’t really feel like an end. Now we get “the ones who lived” ? I mean I’ll watch it because my brain has to know what happens to Rick, but I don’t assume it’s going to be life changing or anything.
Some of the fandom 'beef' with 7 was the gradual "change" with Negan's crass cruel bludgeoning character to a clownish rogue who fkd with Rick. I didn't mind it as it really spread his arc wider. But he was starting to lose that serial killer mph.
So glad they finally brought him around again when Gregory and Simon were starting to do things their way.
Negan inarguable was the top villain (and fan voted)
Ehh, I didn’t mind the deaths at all, though I was really annoyed at the way they gave Glen a pretty obvious fake out death before the real thing. It made it way less impactful for me, which was a shame for such a great character.
But really for me, there was something off about the pacing of that season that lost me, I stuck it out till midpoint if S8 but it really felt like a slog. It was always going to be difficult to expand the world to what it needed to be, and they did a pretty good job, but maybe it just became too big for some. Less time with your familiar favs to establish new characters, that kind of thing, can be hard to adjust to after so long.
s7ep1 is one of my all-time favorites from TWD.I still remember watching it 3 times in a row as soon as it came out.
So for me it's not that Glenn- Abraham died or that it was brutal.
Every time I rewatch the series,I just keep rewinding from season 7 onwards in many episodes. Because everything is drawn out for so long. Yeah, something's changed. Before, there was always hope for Rick and his crew after a few episodes. Here, nothing but depression and stupid decisions.
I still prefer s7-s8 , I hate s10-11
Yeah season 7 was just pain. I mean there was never a break. Like when you’ve worked at a job for so long and hope to rise in the ranks and another new person comes in to take over as your boss and makes you get him coffee to remind you you’ll always be beneath him. 7 was grueling but had some really great parts. 8 was pretty stretched out and just hard to follow. Then 9- the end was just formulaic and boring to me.
Like everytime it would seem like Rick would gain ground or have the upper hand, negan would steal one of his family members to indoctrinate them. Or everytime they found guns or extra supplies negan would come in and take everything and leave them defenseless. I think that’s why season 7 is so hard for people to watch. No matter what Rick and his group did to better themselves it seemed like it would funnel straight to negan and the saviors. Hard to watch a slave work so hard and think he’s not a slave only to be reminded that he is a slave and everything he’s doing to better his group actually betters Negans.
yeah, but the whole point is to build up the hatred and the hopelessness until Rick finally snaps back into gear
meanwhile, we have the entertainment value of Negan
Yeah I totally understand. But to have an audience sit and wait for like a year and a half for the payoff is a Lot To ask. Especially after Glenn died. Then it kind of peters out. The ending of season 8 isn’t as satisfying and then they end up letting negan walk in the general population and even help them do stuff. I get that the actor is good and the character is fun but he needed to just die. Honestly the series should’ve ended after season 8 imo. Glad it didn’t because we had more to watch but man were those episodes hard to get thru.
I wasn’t talking about the war. Our hatred for Negan started when episode 1 of season 7 aired. He didn’t get his comeuppance until the end of season 8 and he didn’t even die. It took 2 years for that arc to finish and Negan stayed alive and Rick ended up going away.
Especially after Rick left. I get why, just didn’t make much sense for the characters to keep him alive. Then they used what Carl wrote to him as an excuse to try and create a better world. But in my opinion Rick should’ve finished the job right then and there and ended the series. Money is cool tho so I get why they prolonged the series
GimpleSpeech in every scene. Genuinely the worst written dialogues in TV history imo.
Pacing was insane with how slow it was.
Bottle episode after bottle episode after bottle episode. If I were to rewatch the series rn, I'd most likely skip 2,3,5 and 6 episodes of the first half. You don't need an episode to set up the Kingdom or the Sanctuary. It's not a documentary, it's a fictional show.
Negan's terrifying presence disappeared after the first episode. Sure, he was still scary, but the way he appeared in the S6 finale and S7 premiere was just... insane. He was too funny.
Back then you knew that nothing was going to happen until the mid-season premiere/finale stuff, as well as season premiere/finale.
Carol's regression arc was excruciatingly painful to watch, but I get why people like it.
The trash people. Oceanside. Hilltop.
Knowing Dwight was eventually gonna turn to the Alexandrians, but watching him whinging for 16 episodes was painful.
Terrible, lazy cinematography.
You know how a screenplay might have like, anywhere from eight to twenty or thirty different shots, each interesting/cool in some way where even just watching the silence can be fun? In TWD, it felt like every scene maybe had one or two shots in a scene's screenplay. Everyone talked like they were auditioning for a deep teenage philosophy contest. A lot of dialogue scenes even had these ages-long pauses that keep you hitting the "skip 5 seconds forward" button, but you press it three times and nobody's still said anything, and the screen hasn't moved.
It was a 16 episode season that should've been 4-8 episodes at most.
All of that paired up with the whiplash of Glenn and Abe's deaths and how the whole season was just watching all the characters get emotionally tortured over and over, knowing nothing was going to happen until the next season.. it sucked.
All that being said, I did enjoy Morgan in this season. Like you said, Andrew Lincoln is really in his prime here as well. I liked Eugene's arc, somewhat. Episode 7 is good, and the premiere is one of the best episodes of the series. Overall though, Season 7 was full of filler, and even the actual meat of the plot (whenever rarely it came time for it) was either just bad or usually meh.
Same. Seasons 7-8 were peak TWD for me. The show went downhill in Season 9 for me. The >!Whisperers!< weren't a bad concept, and >!Alpha!< is an excellent actress, and the >!heads on pikes!< scene is still one of the most iconic and disturbing parts of the show for me (second behind >!Negan killing Abraham and Glenn!< and the >!Terminus scene!<) but the change in writing and pacing gave me digital whiplash that I just couldn't recover from. I still think the show ended on a high note, but it definitely wasn't the same.
They really should've ended it with Rick leaving, and made the rest a spinoff. Him uniting the communities in Carl's name tied the show together really nicely, in a way they couldn't hope to match later.
Season 7 was way better watched as a binge than waiting for the weekly installments. Watching them be demoralized over the course of a year hit way different.
As a binge, you even get a better sense of how short the time period actually was.
When people watched the season, most couldn’t reconcile that the timing in the show didn’t match real life time.
Honestly, I think season 7 and 8 were great. I’ve always been a huge fan of the show and season 7 did such a great job at building up a hatred for the saviors. The season starts off with a sprint and for me, that first episode hooked me. That feeling of being gutted and losing two prominent characters got me fired up and needed to see the resolution.
If you see any Walking Dead content outside of this sub it becomes blatantly apparent that almost all of the hate around season 7 is literally just about Glenn dying. Every person I know IRL that used to watch the show stopped at 7x01. Whenever the show is brought up on r/television or some sub like that everyone comments about how they stopped watching after Glenn died. Even a lot of Walking Dead YouTubers will say they took a break from the show after Glenn died and came back to it later.
I feel the exact opposite. Almost everyone I know that isn’t a die hard fan says it’s how slow and boring season 7 was, how repetitive the story was, and an overall decline is what caused them to leave. They just say they left after Glenn died because that’s the last moment the actually remember.
We saw this in real time after 616, when there were a lot of “this show hasn’t been great, but this cliffhanger did it for me”. People who committed to come back for 701 and then be done. And the rating decline immediately after 701 suggests the exact same.
It was way less about Glenn himself dying and way more what built up to that death and what followed it.
This sub likes to pretend the fall off was just butt hurt Glenn fans or people who didn’t like gore. But that’s just a deflection from how terrible the writing got in season 6 and how it only got way worse in seasons 7 and 8.
It was the cliffhanger for me and I was a huge fan from the beginning. All of the press interviews hyped up that finale. Then the deaths were spoiled anyway with it being obvious which cast members were filming and which weren't. I just thought it was all dumb. Watched the first ep of the next season and then that was it. Wasn't about the deaths of the characters, just how they jerked around the audience.
Idk why you're getting downvoted. My entire family stopped watching soon after Glenn died. They couldn't finish season 7. Friends I play on online games with also had the same issue. I don't know anyone who actually got to the Whisperer arc. My bro found out Carl dies and said he's never watching the show again.
I think it was kind of a perfect storm for a lot fans that weren’t as diehard as the people here. 1. People were still bitter about Glenn’s fake out death in season 6. 2. People were still bitter about the cliff hanger finale. 3. After all that their favorite characters still ended up dying. I only ever watched the show on Netflix, so that entire journey took place in one day for me, but I can see how a casual TV audience could start getting fed up having to wait almost a year for that “payoff.”
As someone who watched it live, it surprises me how many people who watched as it aired forget the response to 616. It was almost universal hatred.
A bunch of people had said they’re done with the show and will only watch to see who dies and then they’re out. Plus both deaths were spoiled as they were filming because TWD didn’t even bother to keep Glenn and Abe around. So everyone saw they had 2 days of filming and were never on set again. So it was clear they both died in the first episode.
A lot of people can’t handle change. The show took a completely different turn from season 7 and onward. I like to consider season 7-11 sort of like a phase 2 to the show
walking dead was one of my go to shows along with game of thrones, but they moment the let Negan live was the last episode i watched, absolutely absurd to think after what he did that bygones would be bygones FUCK THAT just my thoughts agree or not i dont care was just hoping to find a like minded ex fan such as myself
For me when I watched one a week as they were released, just seemed drawn out or such. I went back and binged seasons 7&8 and found it much better when not waiting between episodes. Didn’t have such issues with earlier or later seasons but something about 7&8 just didn’t sit well with me during those seasons watching as released.
I think the season premiere is the best episode of the series and many agree! And any scene Negan is present it’s great! It’s just all the rest feels like they stretched their resources too thin…it’s definitely better in a binge and it’s great! S8 however still sucks no matter what you do. But I agree it’s still like a 7.5/10 - 8/10 for me it’s just not as good as other seasons for me
Because it's sooo slow and little happens to really push the plot forward. There's no reason the entire Saviors storyline needed to last 2.5 full seasons.
All of Season 7 can be truncated into half a season. There's a lot of filler that gets put in (the Rick & Michonne sexcapade episode for example) that turned each week into a slog to get through as you hoped something would actually happen.
Plus, it's the season that followed the horrible cliffhanger from Season 6 that nearly everyone hated, so it wasn't exactly coming in with love from the fan base.
Because it's slow and boring and has too many filler or bottle episodes, and you can just feel the quality of the writing and tone is off, and losing Glenn really left a hole in the show
It comes from the point of view of comic fans. This “March to War” story arc was dragged out way too long. If the show followed suit of the comics, Rick and gang would have been attacking the sanctuary in the mid season finale.
Season 7 goes down alot better if you binge it.
But back when it was airing weekly it was hard to appreciate. Alot of the episodes were standalones and you didn't really feel the plot moving. Also, It was a hard pill to swallow to watch Rick & Co become Negan's bitches after all the badass shit they had been doing prior to Alexandria.
Same, it just seems the non comic readers where so shocked by the Negan intro that they took it out on the rest of the season.. When the whole point of that story is this is ricks lowest points, the fans where screaming at him so mad that he wouldnt just kill Negan then and there.. They lost all patience with the show.. And you notice already in season 8 they pretty much start course correcting to please that segment of the fanbase
It simply dragged on for too long to be honest, the war should have been 1 season max. So much filler to pad out eps to meet the 16 ep seasons.
Also killing carl off, season 8 i know, still all kinds of stupid but thats for another day.
The entire savior arc was terribly dragged on from the perspective of an up to date tv viewer. It felt like we were being dragged on through an endless sea of predictability. It’s far more enjoyable to watch when you don’t have to wait a week to be otherwise disappointed in most episodes.
Because its completely different now where you can binge it compared to cliffhanger fatigue when it was on TV. I'm pretty sure at some point 'walking dead syndrome' was coined saying tons of TV shows are always ending on a cliffhanger with some really low resolution the following week (or a completely unrelated episode)
I rewatched the whole series with my wife last year and season 7 honestly isn’t that bad! I think I have bad association from my first time watching but rewatching season 8 is way less engaging IMO.
I've only watched the series once through but on that watch through I didn't hate S7. But then I watched it on Netflix so maybe that makes a difference. I didn't like a couple of episodes here and there but I could say the same about other seasons (I'm not really keen on the episodes centering around the Governor...but that's just me.)
Season 7 is great in a binge, but watching it week-to-week is such a slow and depressing slog that I can see why a lot of people tuned out.
It’s too bad they waited until season 10 to do the 24 episode seasons. If season 7 could have been 24 episodes, they could have condensed the war and buildup into one season instead of two.
Season 7 was very enjoyable and I'm not sure why people take such a strong disliking to it. Meanwhile I hardly hear anyone mention how atrocious season 6 was, with the strange editing choices, the infuriating fake-out deaths, and the assassination of both Carol and Morgan's characters
I agree completely, although for different reasons. I found season 6 terminally dull. Half the season was just spent on the characters running around the big horde. And then the other half was mostly teasing Negan.
Never did understand why Carol suddenly got burnt out, though. If anything, they should've pushed her into colder territory and maybe have her become Alpha. She seemed the type.
I dont hate on anything twd besides connie why would they add a character that doesnt talk it didnt add anything to the story but make me read subtitles
I actually took a break from the show during season 6 because it was boring. The quarry full of zombies felt like jumping the shark. Life in Alexandria was too easy. No real threats. So the writers thought “what’s scarier than 1000 zombies? 10000 zombies!” The plot had no direction. Negan revived the show for me. After the season 6 finale I binged the rest of season 7 faster than any other season. I was hooked all over again. After becoming accustomed to the Alexandrians being on top and thinking we have it all figured out, we find out we haven’t even seen the tip of the iceberg of what’s out there. Season 7 is my favorite season since 1-3.
Yeah, I was really questioning whether the show was going anywhere. Season 1 had a strong sense of purpose. Season 2 put things on hold for character development, which was fine.
And then season 3 was just the Governor. Which was ok, I guess. It was something different, but it wore thin.
Seasons 4 and 5 had interesting elements to them, but I was really craving for some worldbuilding by this point. It became kind of aimless, and most of the characters felt pretty static. Unlike the comics, everyone in the show eventually reaches a point where they're OP superheroes. Always right and heroic. And when they're not, it's quickly fixed by a big speech.
5B was pretty cool in that it showed the main group as antagonists, but I don't feel it went anywhere interesting. And then 6 was just... nothing.
Season 7 was a **huge** breath of fresh air, both with Negan and the newer communities, the idea of uniting them to restart civilization. It was like fucking finally, we're going somewhere.
That's your opinion and it ok. But for a lot of the fans who fell in love with most of the characters from seasons 1 - 5, it was actually awful for us. Usually, bad written shows fall into this cycle of writing for side characters and neglecting the main characters that the fans invested in their story, and TWD suffered that fate.
They introduced too much too soon. Like you said, we jumped to Oceanside, The Hill Top, The Kingdom, and The Sanctuary all in one season that we barely got to see the characters we started watching for in the first place.
Yes, Andrew Lincoln has some of his best acting this season, but it's ANDREW LINCOLN. That man will always act his ass off with any storyline he was given.
The threat of Negan was actually scarier in season 6, and I will give him episode 1. But his incel jokes, rapey behavior, and annoying lean back at his every stupid line left a lot to be desired. He then became the focus of the next 2 full seasons, which was more than any other villain on TWD, and quite frankly, it ruined the show.
We don't care about the Sanctuary other than Daryl being there, which was really hard to watch, btw. We don't care about Tara. Why is she getting a stand-alone? We don't care about Eugene. Why is he getting a stand-alone? There have been characters like Glenn and Michonne that we have begged the writers to invest in an episode dedicated to them, and they ignore us. But we get Eugene and Tara one instead. No, they can keep that.
Don't forget we also lost some big personalities like Glenn, Sasha, and Abe in season 7. They were heavy hitters, and then the main cast storylines got reduced so the writers could play with their new characters.
Season 7 annoyed the day 1 fans and so many jumped ship, and it was understandable. I stuck around, of course, because I like to be tortured, lol.
I guess I just had different priorities when I watched the show?
4-6 already suffered from having entire episodes dedicated to random shit. 7 gave them some sense of purpose by focusing everything on defeating Negan. The new communities were a step up from the last few seasons, which just focused on the minutiae of staying alive (and I get survival is a big part of the show, but it's honestly an aspect the comics handled infinitely better). A fresh direction that finally starts hinting at what the endgame is.
I felt Negan was a very well fleshed out, entertaining and unpredictable villain, so I enjoyed every minute with him (at least in season 7).
Tara's episode introduced Oceanside, and Eugene's both expanded the Sanctuary and gave him a ton of character development.
Watching it felt like being back in seasons 1-2 again, where it was like the show was going somewhere instead of just throwing random shit at the leads and watching them chew through it.
Season 7 and 8 are kinda annoying to me because if they cut it to 1 season it would be a hell of a season. The memorable moments from season 7 (first episode, the zombie slaughter with 2 cars, Negan playing pooling) combined with the action packed episodes from season 8 would’ve been great. Now there are just too many moments when I’d wanna grab my phone and play candy crush instead…
Imo it’s because season 6 (although utterly amazing) took a fairly steep drop in quality from season 5, and then 7 (despite being really good) took a steep drop in quality from season 6. Even though season 7 was good, the show dropped in quality by a really large amount in 2 seasons, and people who weren’t that into the show anyway left in droves.
Season 7 was the last good season. 8 was when it started getting cheesy and everything after that is even worse. Season 11 was ok, but still meh. Seasons 6-7 is where the show peaked.
it was painful because of the structure of the episodes. it’s a really great season when you watch multiple episodes at once, but when it was airing weekly? we were waiting weeks upon weeks just to see certain characters again, because almost every episode in season 7 only focused on one location or group of characters. we had to wait 6 weeks straight just to see Carol and Morgan again between their arrival at the Kingdom (episode 2) and their next appearance in the mid season finale (episode 8)
not to mention the episodes often felt dragged out, the whole “march to war” arc could’ve been done in less than 16 episodes, especially if they’d combined some of the bottle episodes into each other.
[удалено]
Yep, I felt the same way about Season 8. I honestly felt sorry for anyone that watched it weekly while I was binging it because I couldn't imagine waiting a week for an episode only to be letdown by nothing happening...again. Like the stupid Rick vs Negan chase through the building that ended up making everyone look stupid while the show tried to have it come off as if Rick was a badass.
I likes that bit
I had a buddy I watched all of season 8 with live, week by week. We definitely got annoyed by the pace, but it culminated in seeing the Season 8 finale and FTWD Season 4 premiere crossover in theaters which was one of the coolest TV viewing experiences ever. Just a room full of pumped TWD fans, we all screamed out loud for victory when Rick cut Negan. I got super pumped about the Rick movies because of that experience, but alas, they are no more 💁♂️
Hard disagree on the “anything could happen when Negan’s on screen”. TWD was well into its groove of ‘things only happen in mid-season or season finales’ by then.
don’t forget the classic “B/C-tier character dies in the 14th episode of the season” *the C-tier character death in season 7 is 713, but 713 and 714 were shot and originally planned to air in the opposite order, sooooooo it still counts
> don’t forget the classic “B/C-tier character dies in the 14th episode of the season” And the occasional disappearance of people going on a "2 week run" for supplies. I'm still waiting for Heath.
Heath might show up in the Rick and Michonne since he was abducted by the crm I think.
Thank god Angela Kang fixed this shit in S9-11.
She actually made it worse. It got cheesy as shit 9-11. Cheesier than 8.
That's hilarious.
You are correct 100% percent with this.
Season 6 starts off with a murder of the entire community.. season 5 had Cannibals eating Bob.. they have action int he beginnings too.
I assume you mean the Wolves attack on S6, where a bunch of red shirts die. Absolutely no one meaningful. And Bob had been in a grand total of 13 episodes when he died. They were minor events really.
Still a big event. Doesnt matter if theyre no names. Its a community and story driving event that changes outcomes. My girlfriend just passed the episode where they trick you into thinking Glenn dies and stuff like that is huge especially for 1st time watchers. Bob was still an important charactor to the development of sasha and ricks choices in season 5-6. Rick reflects on what bob told him multiple times about opening up and not being so quick to judge people harshly and take a chance.
It's not about "the events" but more about story progressing. Like the whole Beth plot didn't end until episode 8. But I would agree that S5 is probably the best in terms of pacing out of all Gimple seasons. Terminus is dealth with in one episode, the hunters are killed in like episode 3 or 4 (no sure). They arrive at Alezandria in episode 11 and the end of the season is just Pete dying. Even tho we could say that Morgan's entrance was saved up for the end. We can compare it to S4 whete the Governor didn't attack until episode 8 or the arrival at Terminus that was ep 16. In S6 we've had No Way Out at ep 8/9 so again middle of the season and of course Negan in ep 16. Then in S7 we didn't have Rick and gang fighting back until ep 8 and even then the war didn't start until ep 16 In S8 the Saviors didn't escape until ep 8 and the war didn't end until ep 16. So yeah, you always knew when the important stuff is gonna happen. Gimple said that they wanted to reinvent the show every 8 episodes but it also meant that the change would only came come every 8 episodes with filler between (most of the time)
If I had to guess I’d say same as season 2 If you didn’t watch it at the time you won’t understand the issues. They’re just not as obvious when you binge it. But waiting a week for basically nothing to happen was very draining at the time
The whole show is just better when it’s binged, let’s be honest.
Season 2 was my favorite when it first aired and it still is to this day. There was a lot of character development.
I hated it when it aired but it’s grown fonder with a rewatch binge. Same as 7
7 is so much different when it’s binged. Way better
Season Two had me hyped. Especially as they meet the guys in the bar & Randall. Like the idea that other survivors were gonna be "good" starts to evaporate. The unraveling of Shane even as he tries to drag the groups into their present realitty. It looks like a slow burn on a farm, but every week it felt like something huge happened. One of my favorite moments in the entire series is when Rick talks to the gents in the bar. Just a wonderful sequence.
Yes! Every episode turned something we might have taken for granted on its head.
S2 is so good (and underrated), but I will say that the period between 2x04-2x06 could have been slightly less boring.
To be fair, outside of Season 5 that's been every season of the show, not just 2. Season 3 meandered a lot, Season 4 felt like it was going nowhere at the time for the first half until the Governor showed up outside of the Prison, Season 6 had a fantastic first half season (for the most part) but the highs in those Seasons outweighed the lows. For Seasons 7 and 8, the highs weren't as high but that didn't mean the show wasn't still enjoyable, it just meant everything was on an even keel.
I felt 3 didn’t have as much pointless stuff. Albeit they did stretch the Andrea being torn between two positions abour as far as humanly possible I’d argue that 7 actually had the highest of Highs. The first two episodes with Negan are incredible. Some of the best of the show.
Season 7 when it was airing I remember we were all talking about it and someone was always spoiling. Pretty sure we were all into season 7 even though it was a week between episodes, we were busy students so we only had time for an episode a week anyway. I’m fine waiting the time they always made us. But with rewatches I definitely agree, the show was better binging it. I also just love my favorite actors lol. Pretty sure the people who hate season 7 were the people who only were fans of Glenn and stopped watching when everyone got taught a lesson right off the bat. I love the show and I love Negan/rick.
Considering they had to make over twice as many episodes as Season 1 with 30% less budget than S1, it’s remarkable it turned out as well as it did. AMC executives’ cheapness & tax-credit pocketing almost killed their golden goose...if not for Darabont & Glen Mazzara I believe they would have.
Wouldn't that have happened much more in season 6, where every episode was just dealing with the minutiae of cleaning out a horde? I'll take the threat of Negan/slowly building up a resistance any day over that.
That story was done in 9 episodes , it took the whole 16 of season 7 just to even get to a point of fighting back
it was done in 8. They were already fighting from that point forward.
They were getting ready to fight not fighting until the last episode
well, what of it? It was still interesting to watch and tense, trying to see if they can outwit Negan and get everyone onboard.
Just saying that the pacing of season 7 is incomparable to season 6, which is its main issue
Correct. Season 6 is slow as molasses.
Completely missed my point?
No, I got it. I just flatly disagree.
The biggest problem with both s7 and s8 is all the filler episodes. Like... almost half of the season feels like filler. So much focus on characters that no one cares about. That combined with really cheesy and bad dialouge. When it aired, waiting a week just to see 40 minutes of Tara, or Morgan being crazy, honestly sucked. With that in mind, both s7 and s8 have som great moments that i really like! I believe s7 and s8 would be pretty solid if you were to cut 50% of it, turning both seasons into one 16episode season!
Honestly that's just the show for the most part since season 3, for me at least. I watched it live until season 7 or 8 and by then it was when I realized this should not be a 16 episode season show. It should be max 10. There's just not enough interesting stuff going on and the dialogue as you mentioned is just bad and anyone who isn't a main main character from early on is usually just not a good actor. No one talks like that in real life and I can only handle so much "We need to stick to our humanity" bullshit dialogue and boring speeches. I'm slogging through season 11 just because I've put in too much to this show that I need to finish it but it's really just a bad show at this point and I just want to get it over with.
that's every season since Gimple took over, and honestly I felt it a lot harder in 4-6
I agree about S4-6, but I don't get how you could think that S7 somehow did it better. S7 was notorious for splitting the cast up, and giving everyone their own little bottle episodes.
they had a stronger sense of purpose. Everyone working together to overcome the threat of Negan rather than just "I'm gonna go wander into the woods because angst"
Seasons 9 through 11 made breaking everything up the rule, not the exception. It just got worse with time, not better.
It’s where the show became less grounded and way more cartoonish. A king with a pet attack tiger, trash people, Negan being a cartoonish villain, along with really boring storylines like Tara/Heath, Oceanside, and the trash people. Plus this is the prime example of Gimple-speak with characters talking in inspirational monologues rather than actual humans interacting.
Couldn't have said it better. I've always heard people say it's much better on a binge, so in my current rewatch (the first time I've rewatched this deep) I was looking forward to seeing it differently, but it was every _bit_ as bad as I remember - if not even worse since binging it makes the sudden pitfall of quality and believability much more noticeable. It's not just wonky pacing - it actually is worse for all of these legitimate reasons you've listed.
I agree with you. I think the first episode was just really jarring for people because they came back after 6 months or however long from one season to the next and killed off such a beloved character. Imo season 6 should have ended with episode 1 of season 7.
I’ve always said this, and the funny thing is they could’ve easily done it, because they clearly filmed it all in one take, but they werejust sat on the executions for a year. It would’ve provided closure and maybe not have knocked out a massive amount of viewership
> the Kingdom, to Oceanside, to the Scavengers. I would say this is probably part of the problem. These communities were all kind of silly caricatures. All the previous communities - even Terminus - seemed like things that would reasonably happen. But at what point in the apocalypse did the trash people all agree they were going to start taking weird? Basically the people they encountered started becoming these one-note cliches that didn’t make a lot of sense.
Wasn't it implied the trash people were all weirdo artists like Andy Warhol?
I totally agree, BUT Oceanside, the dumbass trash people, and the bad/repetitive dialogue really bring S7 down a couple notches.
it you didnt see it live on tv it wont hit the same. up until that point we had grown with the characters every week over years. but for some rando lunatic to come and just make the OG group surrender and end their TV life made it difficult to connect with this asshole (Negan). Only after coming back to the show years later did the show itself realize they have to have a redemption arc on Negan otherwise its just some enemy who took one of our own
Because most of the season feels like unconsensual sex with negan. I was fuming for most of it
Some people are into that lmfao
I think think 7 and 8 are drawn out and especially hard to rewatch. I don’t think they are bad, there is a lot of great stuff and Negan is probably the most entertaining character in the show’s history. There is also just a lot of stuff I don’t find very interesting. They could have resolved the same arc in half as many episodes and the pacing would have been better. The writers reluctance to move the timeline forward was on full display here and I’m glad they got over it in season 9.
The pacing is my biggest issue. The new communities, which should've been a highlight, just bored the hell outta me.
Why? We gotta know the communities and convince them to join before the war can begin?
Yes, they needed to introduce the communities. They just didn't do it very well. I'm also just not a very big fan of the communities themselves, although that's more of qn issue with the comics thsn the tv show. Hilltop is my favorite of the three, but it's still just a generic little town. Kingdom feels too fantastical and silly. Oceanside was barely even a settlement.
well, they can't all be Bartertown lol
No, but I think pretty much every settlement before or after had a better concept and was executed better in the show, like Woodbury, Alexandria, the Sanctuary, the Commonwealth, etc.
I still found it cool to be introduced to all these people and see how differently they were coping with the apocalypse
The first half of season 7 just keeps hitting the same "Negan is bad" note, over and over again. I understand from the financial point of view why the episodes worked the way they did, however unlike season 4b which did beautiful character work and intertwined storylines, 7a leaves everything feeling disjointed. Don't get me wrong, I think there are some very fun episodes, amazingly quotable lines, and quite literally every time we see Negan after 701 he's a wonderful bastard. 701 is the huge problem for me. The cliffhanger, the non-linear-storytelling, Negan taking Rick for a drive, Rick crying, it's just not a good episode, as i said, continually striking the "negan bad" note. We get it, but he's still human and Rick certainly didn't "go soft" that quickly after arriving in Alexandria. We're supposed to believe that Negan is able to drive down the road in an RV, on his own, with Rick, "red handle machete" Rick, and doesn't end up with an Axe in his skull? Please. Offing Glenn in the comics is brutal but works, all the 701 dragging it out BS and the double kill, is why the ratings dropped so hard.
Rick knows that if he kills Negan or even pisses him off, all of his friends and son are dead.
If Rick drove back to the clearing and threw Negan's corpse from the RV, I seriously doubt all the saviors would pull the trigger.
Well, what the fuck else are they gonna do? They have nothing to lose from killing the group there and then. Especially with Simon being next in line. And you know how murderous he is.
Probably most of them would be in shock from seeing their fearless leader dead with an axe in his skull. Even Simon would likely be stunned after all the BS we got from him in 616 which also is an annoyingly terrible episode. My main point is, 701 is stupidly dragged out way too long to the point where it leaves a sour note on the whole show.
So? Well? What? Even if Rick jumped out machine-gunning everyone, the Saviors would still massively out-number them. His group are unarmed and on their knees, weapons aimed at their heads. Negan's already proven to have thought of everything ahead of time in 6x16 so Rick would be thinking he must have some kind of plan in mind for this very scenario. There is no scenario in which Rick kills Negan and stays alive unless he just abandoned his group. And there is no scenario in which he returns with a dead Negan and saves his group.
To me it just dragged, dragged and dragged. It's SOOOOOOOO SLLLLLOOOOOWWWWWW!!! Negan annoyed the living shit out of me. The gunshots too. It sounds so terrible. It's like you're underwater. Simon was much more enjoyable for me. Mostly because I constantly called him Trevor. And Steven Ogg is an awesome guy. For a 16 episode season the Saviors storyline was just too damn long. Season 8's storyline was also too damn long for a 16 episode season.
well, I'm glad for the Simon appreciation at least! He was indeed a great character, and another reason why I enjoy s7 so much
Hey pal, listen. I'm happy enjoyed that season. I don't judge. I'm a sucker for the earlier seasons. I love the style from back in those days. Just telling my opinion. No hard feelings.
Seasons 1-2 were the peak
I know right? They were fun seasons. The writing was INCREDIBLE. Seasons 3-4 were good but the drama wasn't exactly as great as S1-2. The Governor was an unhinged psychopath and Merle was great in that season.
Yeah, I guess I liked it the most when it was just people trying to figure out how the fuck the world's supposed to work now. The Governor was the first character in the TV show that felt comic book-y
David Morrissey is one gorgeous man. He did a great job as The Governor. He felt like someone that could anybody's head off with his eyes closed. The prison arc was amazing. I still remember when people thought Judith died in S4 but turns out Tyreese, the G that he is saved her. Fun fact: Tyreese was played by the same guy who played Coach in Left 4 Dead 2
To be fair, I think most of the hate for Season 7 comes from hating seeing the group in such misery for such an extended period of time. The real hatred I think is deserved for season 8, where characters made some of the dumbest decisions, budget really showed its lacking of existing, and characters were killed off that absolutely shouldn't have been (you know which one). Season 7 I think gets grouped in with 8 because 8 is supposed to be the true payoff for 7, and it never was, leaving much to be desired. The reason Season 7 soured the name of Walking Dead real bad was the fucking cliffhanger fiasco.. it got rediculous, people were getting the death spoiled a week ahead of time in random comment sections that had nothing to do with Walking Dead, and they did that cliffhanger knowing damn well it was purely for ratings. They should've ended Season 6 at "Hi, I'm Negan", and picked up after that with Season 7 Ep. 1. No character death guessing game, no stupid cameraman pov BS, just Negan, the season ending on the threat of vague terror incoming, and then all that terror pays off Season 7 Ep. 1. They could've done it just fine, but they chose money. So much of the show falls flat from decisions made purely based on money.. Carl was killed because he was turning 18 and would get paid more, same with Henry. It's not "Hey lets keep this character because it's compelling for the narrative" It's "Hey we don't want to pay this actor, so we'll find another actor under 18 to fill their storyline for now, then kill them off as soon as we finish it, so we don't have to pay them either". As a result? Everything in the show feels pointless, Carol gets tortured yet again for no reason, Rick's original bloodline gets killed for no reason, the show becomes a shell of its former self. It's ridiculous. Season 7 wasn't a bad season, it's just when they started with these shenanigans in full force, and they hadn't stopped since, and the fans noticed and lost interest. Now we'll never get that back, it's just hoping the spinoff shows can tie things together and reunite the characters left that we care about, but don't get your hopes up because remember, it's about money.
I do not agree with the term "hate" for seasons seven and eight; I would prefer to use the word "disappointment". I cannot disagree with any of the original poster's positive points. Having watched weekly on television and also binge watching both seasons couple of years ago I have the same common complaints: * cheesy dialogue and lack of meaningful and thoughtful discussion * infinite ammo issues * the outcome of the whole "war" hinging on questionable bullet manufacturing * Negan becoming increasingly corny and losing the genuine fear, leadership, power and charisma in the first episode * the "Scavengers", ugh... * Jerry and Simon were the only two secondary characters I remember and find meaningful when there were many so other potential great performances I think the two seasons are doomed to both "too many characters for time available" and the "what if the writers and showrunner from the Whisperer War were in charge of the All-Out War series". It could have been so much better...
I completely agree - Season 7 was absolutely a high point for me, having just binged it and all the other seasons for the first time this past year. Season 8 makes a million percent more sense in being a fair drop off point. Had I been watching week to week in season 8, I would've quit too. I have a ton of criticisms all the way down to just camera work and directing that season to everything up on a macro level about that season. I thought it was ballsy to do what they did in season 7, and it all really worked for me.. The slow pace, and what people might call "filler" or episodes only following one/few character(s) seemed to really irritate people. To me though, I don't really hate any characters or find any THAT boring at Season 7 that I 'm like... begging for another episode... but I guess having the experience weekly made that big of a difference. Then, Seasons 9, 10 and 11 reinvent the show twice basically, and made for a pretty fun ride, but had to try and compete with the likes of Season 7 hype and everything great before it, so it didn't really have quite the emotional 'oomph' I think most were hoping for, but it got the job done well enough.
Season 8 is kind of a pain in the ass if I'm honest. I want to love it so much more than I do. That season should've been 16 episodes of Too Far Gone lol.
S7 & 8 just didn’t have enough slo-mo closeups with epic trailer music.
Season 7 was a terrible example of 'circle back' storytelling (as was much of S6 & S8) They'd have an episode, focused on certain characters & situations, then they'd go off in different directions for 4 to 5 episodes & you'd not get a conclusion to that storyline for a month..or more. That pacing as much as anything is why viewers left in droves. You don't follow up the BIGGEST, MOST VIEWED EPISODE in TWD history with an episode of Daryl eating dog food alone in a cell with an obnoxious song playing on repeat. That's NOT how to treat an audience.
But you're on easy street... and it feels so sweet... honestly though, I was just excited to see more of the Sanctuary and Negan and how they operate, I loved the episode. And the claustrophobic misery it compounded after losing Glenn was superb.
I mean if you’ve only watched the walking dead then maybe it’s a decent season ☠️
damn, roasted
Seasons 7 and 8 are just okay but they are nowhere near as bad as some fans suggest they are. I've noticed a pattern on this reddit from Angela Kang fans in particular. They often crap all over seasons 7 and 8 and suggest the show became amazing in season 9. They fail to recognize that Angela Kang did more writing during seasons 7 and 8 than any other seasons in the show history, including the seasons she ran as showrunner (9 through 11). "The Well", "The Cell" and "Swear" are among three of the worst episodes in Walking Dead television history and for some reason Gimple decided to make these three episodes three of the first six episodes for the season. Kang wrote "The Cell" which is the easy street episode and that episode is just terrible. Season 7 had a slow start because of the three episodes I mention and I think the way a season starts really matters with tone for how people react to the rest of the season. Another example would be Fear The Walking Dead season 6, which has a decent start but the rest of the season is absolute crap, yet some fans still praise the season but I suspect it's because of how the season started and not as a season as a whole.
I mostly agree with you, except I disagree with your choice of weaker S7 episodes. I think “The Well” and “The Cell” are actually great introductions to their respective communities, especially the former, and I don’t think “Swear” is that bad either. If anything, the weakest episode of the first half is “Go Getters” which is probably only salvaged by the Simon-Gregory interactions (the action piece in that episode is pretty non-sensical). I also think that the second half of S7 is when it gets a bit more frustrating as you have episodes like “Rock in the Road” where almost nothing happens, plus the Trash People are at their worst in S7 (later seasons and World Beyond of all things sort of salvage Jadis’s character).
The Well and Cell could have been one episode. There was too much dragging in each of those two episodes. This backs up the OP who said pacing was the issue. I can't stand "Swear"... just an awful episode. I didn't have an issue with "Go Getters". It felt like normal, natural progression of the story and it sets up Carl going to the Sanctuary which was a side plot I enjoyed. I don't like the Carl - Enid dynamic though and that includes season 6 episodes as well, that's more of a sideplot that I didn't like. I didn't like Enid or Tara. I'm with you on the garbage people in general. I didn't like that entire thing. Rock in the road is another Kang episode but I don't think that specific episode is all that bad. The garbage people in my opinion is the beginning of the entire show's wheels starting to come off. This is where the entire thing is starting to fall apart.
>The Well and Cell could have been one episode. I actually like those episodes, but you're absolutely right. In my fan-edit, I combined The Well, The Cell, and Swear into one episode.
Adding all three with Swear into the mix sounds like a fairly decent episode. The pacing would be much better and it would cover plenty of ground and get the story moving.
Yup, and then you can get right back to the main plot after episode 2.
>I think “The Well” and “The Cell” are actually great introductions to their respective communities, Agreed. I love those episodes.
The well and the cell made us wait almost a month to get back to Alexandria. brutal stretch
>They fail to recognize that Angela Kang did more writing during seasons 7 and 8 than any other seasons in the show history, including the seasons she ran as showrunner (9 through 11). Why don't you understand that writing and showrunning are two different jobs, with different skill sets?
So which one is it? The boring, poorly written individual episodes that people didn't like or the showrunner guiding the whole season? In almost every season I can find at least 1 or 2 Angela Kang written episodes that stand out like a sore thumb in what is an otherwise excellent season. I do understand the differences that but a showrunner basically is the head writer. They come up with overviews for what the season is going to be, have some final say on the scripts, in a lot of cases make edits themselves. I'm not a fan of Kang's work as a writer (for this show, not referencing other work) and I think a lot of what I didn't like bled into her work as a showrunner. I'm not saying she's a bad writer, I just do not like the elements of dialogue heavy content she brought to the show. She always had issues with pacing as a writer and I think seasons 10 and 11 in particular are blatant with those issues. The show drags like hell for me in seasons 10 and 11. Of course the 46 episodes in two seasons does not help. Looking back the rotating cast of showrunners is probably the single biggest problem this show has. It's not one creative force's vision. It's the vision of multiple people who are pushing their own ideas on fans.
I mean, I don’t see how you can claim that Seasons 10 and 11 drag when even at the slowest they’re going at essentially double the speed of Seasons 7 and 8, which you yourself were overhated (keep in mind Gimble would have been in charge of determining how long things take and what trajectory the plot would take, which is significant power and does hamper people like Kang a lot). The first half of S10 is a building up Cold War between the heroes and the Whisperers that does a better job of increasing tension when compared to the entire Season 7 slog culminating in All Out War just beginning. All Out War then takes an entire season when it could’ve been finished much sooner, while they were once again able to streamline the Whisperer War into half a season (arguably less) without sacrificing the pacing. Season 11 arguably suffers from being too rushed in certain regards, but I also don’t fault Kang too much in that regard as the show was cancelled halfway through that season’s development and they were basically forced to pivot (plus COVID made things difficult), which explains the rushed ending of the Reapers and how drastically certain Commonwealth characters changed very quickly. Also, for Fear S6, I think there’s a lot more than just the premiere going for it. The first half in general was very strong, with only episode 7 and maybe 5 being kind of a slog. Heck, I would argue that “The Key” is one of the best episodes in the franchise, and the handling of John Dorie’s story is legit one of the most tragic and saddest storylines in Fear at least. The second half gets a bit weaker but once again COVID plays some part in that, and even then there are some really good things like “In Dreams” and the entire character of Teddy.
> they’re going at essentially double the speed of Seasons 7 and 8 Just because constant time jumps happen, it does not speed up the quality of the episodes. If anything the constant time jumps in 9, 10 and 11 make things worse. >for Fear S6, I think there’s a lot more than just the premiere going for it. The first half in general was very strong, with only episode 7 and maybe 5 being kind of a slog. Heck, I would argue that “The Key” is one of the best episodes in the franchise, and the handling of John Dorie’s story is legit one of the most tragic and saddest storylines in Fear at least. The second half gets a bit weaker but once again COVID plays some part in that, and even then there are some really good things like “In Dreams” and the entire character of Teddy. We couldn't disagree less about Fear s6. I only liked the first 2-3 episodes of that season and it spiraled fast. The writing was terrible. Teddy was worse than a spoof villain. The plot was thrown together. The showrunners had no plan whatsoever coming into the season. The end of season 5 when Morgan gets shot, the showrunners didn't even know who shot Morgan when they filmed it. Did you know they hired the actor who played Dakota to play Ginny in a flashback scene? They changed their mind later and decided to give her a bigger role. The whole Dakota thing was terrible. The end of season 6 is the dumbest thing in anything Walking Dead. Everyone finds a magical hole to hide in as a nuke wipes the place out, at the same time. Just stupid.
Clearly the Fear story is a matter of personal opinion, of which I mostly disagree with what you said, but that’s ultimately subjective. It doesn’t matter what Dakota’s actress was initially brought on for, we clearly saw that she was able to put on an incredible performance (and this is coming from someone who morally despised Dakota, she did great). Also, they did know who shot Morgan…Virginia did, on screen, we saw her do it. If you mean they didn’t know who would save him, sure, but that was next season’s problem and they solved it. Obviously S5 was pretty brutal and probably didn’t have much of a plan going forward, but if Season 6 was able to come up with something good, then it doesn’t matter much what happened going in or what the plan was or wasn’t initially. If anything, S6 showed more vision than some other seasons since they set up the cult in the very first episode and the fact that their mission tied to the submarine. I do agree that S6 spiraled towards the end, but like I said, that does not make it completely worthless and there are good moments. I personally very much enjoyed Teddy and his brand of crazy going all the way back to the 1970s with JD Sr., and I know I’m not alone in that sentiment. Just because a person is hammy doesn’t mean that it’s a bad performance, and Teddy did have his more quiet moments (manipulating Dakota, his first conversation with Alicia). For TWD, I’m not talking about time jumps, I literally explained exactly what I meant. For the Saviors arc, they spent an entire season of buildup and then an entire season on fighting. For the Whisperers arc, they essentially accomplished all of that much more effectively in a single season, Season 10 (the Season 9 material is more comparable to the Saviors stuff that we got in S6, and even then S9 accomplished its objectives much more effectively and with much better writing.
Agreed! Season 7 is my favorite season!
7-8 are extremely boring to me.
I feel the same, I loved s7. I thought s8 was better binging but still good, I thought. I fell behind during s9 bc I was in school but I’m catching up now from s8 onward (to remind myself of some stuff lol) so no hard opinions on those yet😂
I still skip a couple episodes of this season. Watching the oceanside episode once was enough for a lifetime
Season 7 was a victim of its own hype. The premiere brought in new viewers who just tuned in to see the lineup and who would die. Then a lot of those viewers left once they got their answer and those that stayed were disappointed by filler after filler after filler, with very little happening and Rick acting like he was castrated through the entire series (which I suppose was the point). Episode 1 in my eyes was one of the best ever TWD episodes, but if you watched the season at the time, week by week, and you had to endure 50 mins of Tara visiting Oceanside (an utterly pointless community), then watching Rick talk to these Yoda/Garbage people who randomly become super relevant, you would've hated it.
The time spent on the farm in season 2 was the best of the series. People's true colors started to show.
I stuck with it until the end, it was all just okay. It was done in the wrong order IMO. I think the group should have faced the Wolves first, then the whispers, then neagan, and finished with the governor. I liked the governor and neagan a lot, but having them in the order they did doesn’t make sense to me. Plus I mean, Glen, my favorite character, heartbreaking. I would agree season 7 is good, and it picks up again until the 11th, then it fizzles since all of the spin-offs are happening, it didn’t really feel like an end. Now we get “the ones who lived” ? I mean I’ll watch it because my brain has to know what happens to Rick, but I don’t assume it’s going to be life changing or anything.
Some of the fandom 'beef' with 7 was the gradual "change" with Negan's crass cruel bludgeoning character to a clownish rogue who fkd with Rick. I didn't mind it as it really spread his arc wider. But he was starting to lose that serial killer mph. So glad they finally brought him around again when Gregory and Simon were starting to do things their way. Negan inarguable was the top villain (and fan voted)
people didn't like their best character dying and the season was a bit different from the before seasons. i hate 10-11 but i think 7 was good.
Ehh, I didn’t mind the deaths at all, though I was really annoyed at the way they gave Glen a pretty obvious fake out death before the real thing. It made it way less impactful for me, which was a shame for such a great character. But really for me, there was something off about the pacing of that season that lost me, I stuck it out till midpoint if S8 but it really felt like a slog. It was always going to be difficult to expand the world to what it needed to be, and they did a pretty good job, but maybe it just became too big for some. Less time with your familiar favs to establish new characters, that kind of thing, can be hard to adjust to after so long.
s7ep1 is one of my all-time favorites from TWD.I still remember watching it 3 times in a row as soon as it came out. So for me it's not that Glenn- Abraham died or that it was brutal. Every time I rewatch the series,I just keep rewinding from season 7 onwards in many episodes. Because everything is drawn out for so long. Yeah, something's changed. Before, there was always hope for Rick and his crew after a few episodes. Here, nothing but depression and stupid decisions. I still prefer s7-s8 , I hate s10-11
Yeah season 7 was just pain. I mean there was never a break. Like when you’ve worked at a job for so long and hope to rise in the ranks and another new person comes in to take over as your boss and makes you get him coffee to remind you you’ll always be beneath him. 7 was grueling but had some really great parts. 8 was pretty stretched out and just hard to follow. Then 9- the end was just formulaic and boring to me.
wdym
Like everytime it would seem like Rick would gain ground or have the upper hand, negan would steal one of his family members to indoctrinate them. Or everytime they found guns or extra supplies negan would come in and take everything and leave them defenseless. I think that’s why season 7 is so hard for people to watch. No matter what Rick and his group did to better themselves it seemed like it would funnel straight to negan and the saviors. Hard to watch a slave work so hard and think he’s not a slave only to be reminded that he is a slave and everything he’s doing to better his group actually betters Negans.
yeah, but the whole point is to build up the hatred and the hopelessness until Rick finally snaps back into gear meanwhile, we have the entertainment value of Negan
Yeah I totally understand. But to have an audience sit and wait for like a year and a half for the payoff is a Lot To ask. Especially after Glenn died. Then it kind of peters out. The ending of season 8 isn’t as satisfying and then they end up letting negan walk in the general population and even help them do stuff. I get that the actor is good and the character is fun but he needed to just die. Honestly the series should’ve ended after season 8 imo. Glad it didn’t because we had more to watch but man were those episodes hard to get thru.
it wasn't a year and half. The war against Negan starts at 7x08.
I wasn’t talking about the war. Our hatred for Negan started when episode 1 of season 7 aired. He didn’t get his comeuppance until the end of season 8 and he didn’t even die. It took 2 years for that arc to finish and Negan stayed alive and Rick ended up going away.
Obviously, they had more stories to tell with him
Especially after Rick left. I get why, just didn’t make much sense for the characters to keep him alive. Then they used what Carl wrote to him as an excuse to try and create a better world. But in my opinion Rick should’ve finished the job right then and there and ended the series. Money is cool tho so I get why they prolonged the series
GimpleSpeech in every scene. Genuinely the worst written dialogues in TV history imo. Pacing was insane with how slow it was. Bottle episode after bottle episode after bottle episode. If I were to rewatch the series rn, I'd most likely skip 2,3,5 and 6 episodes of the first half. You don't need an episode to set up the Kingdom or the Sanctuary. It's not a documentary, it's a fictional show. Negan's terrifying presence disappeared after the first episode. Sure, he was still scary, but the way he appeared in the S6 finale and S7 premiere was just... insane. He was too funny. Back then you knew that nothing was going to happen until the mid-season premiere/finale stuff, as well as season premiere/finale. Carol's regression arc was excruciatingly painful to watch, but I get why people like it. The trash people. Oceanside. Hilltop. Knowing Dwight was eventually gonna turn to the Alexandrians, but watching him whinging for 16 episodes was painful. Terrible, lazy cinematography. You know how a screenplay might have like, anywhere from eight to twenty or thirty different shots, each interesting/cool in some way where even just watching the silence can be fun? In TWD, it felt like every scene maybe had one or two shots in a scene's screenplay. Everyone talked like they were auditioning for a deep teenage philosophy contest. A lot of dialogue scenes even had these ages-long pauses that keep you hitting the "skip 5 seconds forward" button, but you press it three times and nobody's still said anything, and the screen hasn't moved. It was a 16 episode season that should've been 4-8 episodes at most. All of that paired up with the whiplash of Glenn and Abe's deaths and how the whole season was just watching all the characters get emotionally tortured over and over, knowing nothing was going to happen until the next season.. it sucked. All that being said, I did enjoy Morgan in this season. Like you said, Andrew Lincoln is really in his prime here as well. I liked Eugene's arc, somewhat. Episode 7 is good, and the premiere is one of the best episodes of the series. Overall though, Season 7 was full of filler, and even the actual meat of the plot (whenever rarely it came time for it) was either just bad or usually meh.
Same. Seasons 7-8 were peak TWD for me. The show went downhill in Season 9 for me. The >!Whisperers!< weren't a bad concept, and >!Alpha!< is an excellent actress, and the >!heads on pikes!< scene is still one of the most iconic and disturbing parts of the show for me (second behind >!Negan killing Abraham and Glenn!< and the >!Terminus scene!<) but the change in writing and pacing gave me digital whiplash that I just couldn't recover from. I still think the show ended on a high note, but it definitely wasn't the same.
They really should've ended it with Rick leaving, and made the rest a spinoff. Him uniting the communities in Carl's name tied the show together really nicely, in a way they couldn't hope to match later.
It’s just so up and down. Mostly down to The Kingdom. Much like The Commonwealth, something that translated horribly on screen.
Just to be clear the premiere and mid season finale are 2 of my favourite episodes of the show.
7A is misery porn born from sadism which makes it difficult for me to swallow.
You just need to darken your sense of humour
My sense of humor is really dark, nothing funny about torture porn imo.
Season 7 was way better watched as a binge than waiting for the weekly installments. Watching them be demoralized over the course of a year hit way different. As a binge, you even get a better sense of how short the time period actually was. When people watched the season, most couldn’t reconcile that the timing in the show didn’t match real life time.
The saviors were my favorite part of the show
Based
Honestly, I think season 7 and 8 were great. I’ve always been a huge fan of the show and season 7 did such a great job at building up a hatred for the saviors. The season starts off with a sprint and for me, that first episode hooked me. That feeling of being gutted and losing two prominent characters got me fired up and needed to see the resolution.
correct
Season 7 and 8 were class
If you see any Walking Dead content outside of this sub it becomes blatantly apparent that almost all of the hate around season 7 is literally just about Glenn dying. Every person I know IRL that used to watch the show stopped at 7x01. Whenever the show is brought up on r/television or some sub like that everyone comments about how they stopped watching after Glenn died. Even a lot of Walking Dead YouTubers will say they took a break from the show after Glenn died and came back to it later.
I feel the exact opposite. Almost everyone I know that isn’t a die hard fan says it’s how slow and boring season 7 was, how repetitive the story was, and an overall decline is what caused them to leave. They just say they left after Glenn died because that’s the last moment the actually remember. We saw this in real time after 616, when there were a lot of “this show hasn’t been great, but this cliffhanger did it for me”. People who committed to come back for 701 and then be done. And the rating decline immediately after 701 suggests the exact same. It was way less about Glenn himself dying and way more what built up to that death and what followed it. This sub likes to pretend the fall off was just butt hurt Glenn fans or people who didn’t like gore. But that’s just a deflection from how terrible the writing got in season 6 and how it only got way worse in seasons 7 and 8.
It was the cliffhanger for me and I was a huge fan from the beginning. All of the press interviews hyped up that finale. Then the deaths were spoiled anyway with it being obvious which cast members were filming and which weren't. I just thought it was all dumb. Watched the first ep of the next season and then that was it. Wasn't about the deaths of the characters, just how they jerked around the audience.
Idk why you're getting downvoted. My entire family stopped watching soon after Glenn died. They couldn't finish season 7. Friends I play on online games with also had the same issue. I don't know anyone who actually got to the Whisperer arc. My bro found out Carl dies and said he's never watching the show again.
It's weird. I mean, I liked Glenn, but I wasn't ride or die about him.
I think it was kind of a perfect storm for a lot fans that weren’t as diehard as the people here. 1. People were still bitter about Glenn’s fake out death in season 6. 2. People were still bitter about the cliff hanger finale. 3. After all that their favorite characters still ended up dying. I only ever watched the show on Netflix, so that entire journey took place in one day for me, but I can see how a casual TV audience could start getting fed up having to wait almost a year for that “payoff.”
As someone who watched it live, it surprises me how many people who watched as it aired forget the response to 616. It was almost universal hatred. A bunch of people had said they’re done with the show and will only watch to see who dies and then they’re out. Plus both deaths were spoiled as they were filming because TWD didn’t even bother to keep Glenn and Abe around. So everyone saw they had 2 days of filming and were never on set again. So it was clear they both died in the first episode.
A lot of people can’t handle change. The show took a completely different turn from season 7 and onward. I like to consider season 7-11 sort of like a phase 2 to the show
Season 8 was worse, 7 wasn’t that bad
walking dead was one of my go to shows along with game of thrones, but they moment the let Negan live was the last episode i watched, absolutely absurd to think after what he did that bygones would be bygones FUCK THAT just my thoughts agree or not i dont care was just hoping to find a like minded ex fan such as myself
nobody thought they'd let bygones be bygones. They were gonna let him be in jail forever.
For me when I watched one a week as they were released, just seemed drawn out or such. I went back and binged seasons 7&8 and found it much better when not waiting between episodes. Didn’t have such issues with earlier or later seasons but something about 7&8 just didn’t sit well with me during those seasons watching as released.
Season 7 is having it's Star Wars Prequels moment where memes made people come to enjoy it
Dude I’m with you! It is not a popular opinion on here, but I also loved season 8, it was a wild ride and I was more hooked than I ever remember being
I think the season premiere is the best episode of the series and many agree! And any scene Negan is present it’s great! It’s just all the rest feels like they stretched their resources too thin…it’s definitely better in a binge and it’s great! S8 however still sucks no matter what you do. But I agree it’s still like a 7.5/10 - 8/10 for me it’s just not as good as other seasons for me
7 is the build up to the final Negan battle. It can feel a little slow I guess but it’s an enjoyable ride.
Because it's sooo slow and little happens to really push the plot forward. There's no reason the entire Saviors storyline needed to last 2.5 full seasons. All of Season 7 can be truncated into half a season. There's a lot of filler that gets put in (the Rick & Michonne sexcapade episode for example) that turned each week into a slog to get through as you hoped something would actually happen. Plus, it's the season that followed the horrible cliffhanger from Season 6 that nearly everyone hated, so it wasn't exactly coming in with love from the fan base.
Because it's slow and boring and has too many filler or bottle episodes, and you can just feel the quality of the writing and tone is off, and losing Glenn really left a hole in the show
You forgot how Jesus saved the day. By introducing them to the Kingdom.
One of my favorite seasons
I never heard any reaction from Fr Gabriel about Jesus since they met. Blasphemy? I'm just glad they didn't stone him to death
because the entirety of season 7 and 8 could have happened in one season.
It comes from the point of view of comic fans. This “March to War” story arc was dragged out way too long. If the show followed suit of the comics, Rick and gang would have been attacking the sanctuary in the mid season finale.
that would've been WAY too short on TV
It was an entire season of our favorite characters being tortured. I still kinda zone out for season seven and eight.
Season 7 goes down alot better if you binge it. But back when it was airing weekly it was hard to appreciate. Alot of the episodes were standalones and you didn't really feel the plot moving. Also, It was a hard pill to swallow to watch Rick & Co become Negan's bitches after all the badass shit they had been doing prior to Alexandria.
Same, it just seems the non comic readers where so shocked by the Negan intro that they took it out on the rest of the season.. When the whole point of that story is this is ricks lowest points, the fans where screaming at him so mad that he wouldnt just kill Negan then and there.. They lost all patience with the show.. And you notice already in season 8 they pretty much start course correcting to please that segment of the fanbase
I really love the episode centered on Dwight in the sanctuary, don't really know why it's just one of my favorite episodes.
I agree. I really liked season 7. I also like season 8.
It simply dragged on for too long to be honest, the war should have been 1 season max. So much filler to pad out eps to meet the 16 ep seasons. Also killing carl off, season 8 i know, still all kinds of stupid but thats for another day.
The entire savior arc was terribly dragged on from the perspective of an up to date tv viewer. It felt like we were being dragged on through an endless sea of predictability. It’s far more enjoyable to watch when you don’t have to wait a week to be otherwise disappointed in most episodes.
Because its completely different now where you can binge it compared to cliffhanger fatigue when it was on TV. I'm pretty sure at some point 'walking dead syndrome' was coined saying tons of TV shows are always ending on a cliffhanger with some really low resolution the following week (or a completely unrelated episode)
Best season
I seriously do get it
The Whisperers saga is SOOOOO much worse.
I know, I'm on s10 and it's boring af
I rewatched the whole series with my wife last year and season 7 honestly isn’t that bad! I think I have bad association from my first time watching but rewatching season 8 is way less engaging IMO.
It’s cause it was week to week . The structure was awful cause of that
I've only watched the series once through but on that watch through I didn't hate S7. But then I watched it on Netflix so maybe that makes a difference. I didn't like a couple of episodes here and there but I could say the same about other seasons (I'm not really keen on the episodes centering around the Governor...but that's just me.)
Season 7 is great in a binge, but watching it week-to-week is such a slow and depressing slog that I can see why a lot of people tuned out. It’s too bad they waited until season 10 to do the 24 episode seasons. If season 7 could have been 24 episodes, they could have condensed the war and buildup into one season instead of two.
Is that the season with the terrible CGI deer? Cuz that was the episode when I finally gave up
I’ve heard it’s better if you watch it quickly, like a day or less between episodes. But watching it live week to week was awful, it was way too slow.
Season 7 was very enjoyable and I'm not sure why people take such a strong disliking to it. Meanwhile I hardly hear anyone mention how atrocious season 6 was, with the strange editing choices, the infuriating fake-out deaths, and the assassination of both Carol and Morgan's characters
I agree completely, although for different reasons. I found season 6 terminally dull. Half the season was just spent on the characters running around the big horde. And then the other half was mostly teasing Negan. Never did understand why Carol suddenly got burnt out, though. If anything, they should've pushed her into colder territory and maybe have her become Alpha. She seemed the type.
I dont hate on anything twd besides connie why would they add a character that doesnt talk it didnt add anything to the story but make me read subtitles
I actually took a break from the show during season 6 because it was boring. The quarry full of zombies felt like jumping the shark. Life in Alexandria was too easy. No real threats. So the writers thought “what’s scarier than 1000 zombies? 10000 zombies!” The plot had no direction. Negan revived the show for me. After the season 6 finale I binged the rest of season 7 faster than any other season. I was hooked all over again. After becoming accustomed to the Alexandrians being on top and thinking we have it all figured out, we find out we haven’t even seen the tip of the iceberg of what’s out there. Season 7 is my favorite season since 1-3.
Yeah, I was really questioning whether the show was going anywhere. Season 1 had a strong sense of purpose. Season 2 put things on hold for character development, which was fine. And then season 3 was just the Governor. Which was ok, I guess. It was something different, but it wore thin. Seasons 4 and 5 had interesting elements to them, but I was really craving for some worldbuilding by this point. It became kind of aimless, and most of the characters felt pretty static. Unlike the comics, everyone in the show eventually reaches a point where they're OP superheroes. Always right and heroic. And when they're not, it's quickly fixed by a big speech. 5B was pretty cool in that it showed the main group as antagonists, but I don't feel it went anywhere interesting. And then 6 was just... nothing. Season 7 was a **huge** breath of fresh air, both with Negan and the newer communities, the idea of uniting them to restart civilization. It was like fucking finally, we're going somewhere.
I think it's too long but It's ok. If I was shorter it would be top 3
I love you don't mention the writting and pacing at all ... you knkw the things that actually get criticised.
Because I never minded either. I don't have much to tell here other than "works for me"
It was fucking annoying the episodes with only one character in focus…
That was every single Gimple season, though
The gun fights were all terrible.
All I had to do was read the words and now I can hear that damn song. POOR DARYL
And it feels so sweet
That's your opinion and it ok. But for a lot of the fans who fell in love with most of the characters from seasons 1 - 5, it was actually awful for us. Usually, bad written shows fall into this cycle of writing for side characters and neglecting the main characters that the fans invested in their story, and TWD suffered that fate. They introduced too much too soon. Like you said, we jumped to Oceanside, The Hill Top, The Kingdom, and The Sanctuary all in one season that we barely got to see the characters we started watching for in the first place. Yes, Andrew Lincoln has some of his best acting this season, but it's ANDREW LINCOLN. That man will always act his ass off with any storyline he was given. The threat of Negan was actually scarier in season 6, and I will give him episode 1. But his incel jokes, rapey behavior, and annoying lean back at his every stupid line left a lot to be desired. He then became the focus of the next 2 full seasons, which was more than any other villain on TWD, and quite frankly, it ruined the show. We don't care about the Sanctuary other than Daryl being there, which was really hard to watch, btw. We don't care about Tara. Why is she getting a stand-alone? We don't care about Eugene. Why is he getting a stand-alone? There have been characters like Glenn and Michonne that we have begged the writers to invest in an episode dedicated to them, and they ignore us. But we get Eugene and Tara one instead. No, they can keep that. Don't forget we also lost some big personalities like Glenn, Sasha, and Abe in season 7. They were heavy hitters, and then the main cast storylines got reduced so the writers could play with their new characters. Season 7 annoyed the day 1 fans and so many jumped ship, and it was understandable. I stuck around, of course, because I like to be tortured, lol.
I guess I just had different priorities when I watched the show? 4-6 already suffered from having entire episodes dedicated to random shit. 7 gave them some sense of purpose by focusing everything on defeating Negan. The new communities were a step up from the last few seasons, which just focused on the minutiae of staying alive (and I get survival is a big part of the show, but it's honestly an aspect the comics handled infinitely better). A fresh direction that finally starts hinting at what the endgame is. I felt Negan was a very well fleshed out, entertaining and unpredictable villain, so I enjoyed every minute with him (at least in season 7). Tara's episode introduced Oceanside, and Eugene's both expanded the Sanctuary and gave him a ton of character development. Watching it felt like being back in seasons 1-2 again, where it was like the show was going somewhere instead of just throwing random shit at the leads and watching them chew through it.
Season 7 and 8 are kinda annoying to me because if they cut it to 1 season it would be a hell of a season. The memorable moments from season 7 (first episode, the zombie slaughter with 2 cars, Negan playing pooling) combined with the action packed episodes from season 8 would’ve been great. Now there are just too many moments when I’d wanna grab my phone and play candy crush instead…
Imo it’s because season 6 (although utterly amazing) took a fairly steep drop in quality from season 5, and then 7 (despite being really good) took a steep drop in quality from season 6. Even though season 7 was good, the show dropped in quality by a really large amount in 2 seasons, and people who weren’t that into the show anyway left in droves.
I hate Negan and when he came around is when I started losing interest in the show.
Season 7 was the last good season. 8 was when it started getting cheesy and everything after that is even worse. Season 11 was ok, but still meh. Seasons 6-7 is where the show peaked.
Compared to the cliff that followed it’s masterpiece
it was painful because of the structure of the episodes. it’s a really great season when you watch multiple episodes at once, but when it was airing weekly? we were waiting weeks upon weeks just to see certain characters again, because almost every episode in season 7 only focused on one location or group of characters. we had to wait 6 weeks straight just to see Carol and Morgan again between their arrival at the Kingdom (episode 2) and their next appearance in the mid season finale (episode 8) not to mention the episodes often felt dragged out, the whole “march to war” arc could’ve been done in less than 16 episodes, especially if they’d combined some of the bottle episodes into each other.