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Review: At 100 Episodes, ‘The Walking Dead’ Is Walking in Circles | Review: At 100 Episodes, ‘The Walking Dead’ Is Walking in Circles |
(about 5 hours later) | |
AMC’s horror series “The Walking Dead” reaches a significant television milestone on Sunday: Its Season 8 premiere is also its 100th episode, a traditional benchmark of enduring success and the ability to unlock even greater profits through syndication sales. | AMC’s horror series “The Walking Dead” reaches a significant television milestone on Sunday: Its Season 8 premiere is also its 100th episode, a traditional benchmark of enduring success and the ability to unlock even greater profits through syndication sales. |
But wait. It’s only been 100 episodes? Doesn’t it feel as if the show has been sneaking through the woods and motoring down the abandoned highways of the zombie-plagued rural South for a lot longer than that? | But wait. It’s only been 100 episodes? Doesn’t it feel as if the show has been sneaking through the woods and motoring down the abandoned highways of the zombie-plagued rural South for a lot longer than that? |
And the road stretches endlessly into the future. While other successful shows of the same vintage are gracefully pulling down the curtain — “The Americans” and “Game of Thrones” have both announced that their next seasons will be their last — the producers of “The Walking Dead,” with plenty of comic books remaining to adapt, talk cheerily of another 100 episodes. | And the road stretches endlessly into the future. While other successful shows of the same vintage are gracefully pulling down the curtain — “The Americans” and “Game of Thrones” have both announced that their next seasons will be their last — the producers of “The Walking Dead,” with plenty of comic books remaining to adapt, talk cheerily of another 100 episodes. |
[ What to remember before watching Season 8 of “The Walking Dead.” ] | |
It’s silly to argue with success, when a show has dominated the ratings for most of its run (and when it and its offshoots support hundreds, probably thousands of workers). But Sunday’s premiere, the only new episode available in advance, finds “The Walking Dead” circling in the same storytelling stasis that has marked its last few seasons. It moves along in a lurching shuffle it seems to have picked up from the walkers, its decomposing zombie hordes. | It’s silly to argue with success, when a show has dominated the ratings for most of its run (and when it and its offshoots support hundreds, probably thousands of workers). But Sunday’s premiere, the only new episode available in advance, finds “The Walking Dead” circling in the same storytelling stasis that has marked its last few seasons. It moves along in a lurching shuffle it seems to have picked up from the walkers, its decomposing zombie hordes. |
What’s most striking about the episode, titled “Mercy,” is how little we see of those walkers. Once the show’s source of existential dread, they’re now mostly props, staggering past in the background or being herded like deadly farm animals. A column of them figures in the plot in a way that’s derivative of Season 6’s quarry episodes while lacking any real sense of freaky menace. | What’s most striking about the episode, titled “Mercy,” is how little we see of those walkers. Once the show’s source of existential dread, they’re now mostly props, staggering past in the background or being herded like deadly farm animals. A column of them figures in the plot in a way that’s derivative of Season 6’s quarry episodes while lacking any real sense of freaky menace. |
A long shift from walkers to humans as primary antagonists now feels complete, though of course the show could shift back at any time. The band of survivors centered on the former deputy sheriff Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) has faced human nemeses all along, from the loose cannon Merle Dixon to the maniacal Governor, but the definitive turn happened with the introduction of the current nemesis, the theatrical, truly comic book-style Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, whose performance has been the main reason to watch lately). | A long shift from walkers to humans as primary antagonists now feels complete, though of course the show could shift back at any time. The band of survivors centered on the former deputy sheriff Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) has faced human nemeses all along, from the loose cannon Merle Dixon to the maniacal Governor, but the definitive turn happened with the introduction of the current nemesis, the theatrical, truly comic book-style Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, whose performance has been the main reason to watch lately). |
The urge to expand the story beyond the constant flight from mindless flesh-munchers is understandable. But much of the dread, as well as emotional urgency, has gone out of the show in the process. What we’re left with, in the current plot in which Rick tries to unite various survivor groups against Negan’s predatory Saviors, are platitudes about community building and the ethics of self-preservation, swathed in the show’s always evocative cinematography and high production values. | The urge to expand the story beyond the constant flight from mindless flesh-munchers is understandable. But much of the dread, as well as emotional urgency, has gone out of the show in the process. What we’re left with, in the current plot in which Rick tries to unite various survivor groups against Negan’s predatory Saviors, are platitudes about community building and the ethics of self-preservation, swathed in the show’s always evocative cinematography and high production values. |
(Though even here there’s room to carp: the staging of the action in the season premiere, in which Rick, Maggie and XXX lead an attack on the Saviors compound, feels well below the show’s previous standard, like Michael Bay on a bad day. And with all those bullets flying around, how is it possible that no one has just gone ahead and shot Negan?) | (Though even here there’s room to carp: the staging of the action in the season premiere, in which Rick, Maggie and XXX lead an attack on the Saviors compound, feels well below the show’s previous standard, like Michael Bay on a bad day. And with all those bullets flying around, how is it possible that no one has just gone ahead and shot Negan?) |
“The Walking Dead,” with its two-part, 16-episode seasons, is in a no-man’s-land between shorter cable and streaming shows and longer but episodic broadcast shows, and it’s TV’s prime example of the strains of telling a tightly serialized story across many years with no natural end in sight. | “The Walking Dead,” with its two-part, 16-episode seasons, is in a no-man’s-land between shorter cable and streaming shows and longer but episodic broadcast shows, and it’s TV’s prime example of the strains of telling a tightly serialized story across many years with no natural end in sight. |
What made the show terrifying in its early seasons wasn’t its gore, but the seemingly certain extinction faced weekly by its small, thrown together band of wanderers. You can defend what’s happened since as a natural, even realistic, progression, but the political-philosophical-religious allegory the show’s become is a wan replacement for the nail-biting survival tale that it was. | What made the show terrifying in its early seasons wasn’t its gore, but the seemingly certain extinction faced weekly by its small, thrown together band of wanderers. You can defend what’s happened since as a natural, even realistic, progression, but the political-philosophical-religious allegory the show’s become is a wan replacement for the nail-biting survival tale that it was. |
The season premiere contains what could be a nod to a possible end game for the show: a few short, fragmentary scenes in which an older, biblically bearded Rick is still alive. It’s unclear whether they’re actual flash forwards or some kind of vision or dream. But if they are the future, the realities of balance sheets and franchise building mean that there will be a lot of circling around before it arrives. | The season premiere contains what could be a nod to a possible end game for the show: a few short, fragmentary scenes in which an older, biblically bearded Rick is still alive. It’s unclear whether they’re actual flash forwards or some kind of vision or dream. But if they are the future, the realities of balance sheets and franchise building mean that there will be a lot of circling around before it arrives. |