Show Snob
Fansided

‘Walking Dead’ changes showrunner for Season 9

By Shawn Lealos

facebooktwitterreddit

A lot of fans have grown to severely dislike the job that Walking Dead showrunner Scott Gimple has done with the series in the last season and a half.

Ratings for The Walking Dead have plummeted, and a lot of the hate goes towards Negan and the uneven job that Gimple has done in progressing the character.

As a result, Variety reports that Scott Gimple will leave his role as the showrunner for Walking Dead following this season, to be replaced by writer Angela Kang. She has written 21 episodes from the second through the eighth season of the show, including the episode where Beth died.

Interestingly, Gimple is not leaving and received a promotion to the position of Chief Content Officer, a newly created position just for him. He will oversee the content for both The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead but will not have an active hand in the writing of the shows.

The question now is whether a change in showrunners will help improve the series in the minds of fans. The problem might not be in the writing of The Walking Dead, but in the format of the show itself and there is a chance that no one will keep fans satisfied when it comes to where the show goes from here.

The complaints about Negan remain puzzling. The main problem with Negan is how the writers have dealt with him. In his best moments, Negan is the most complex character in the series. He is a man who is evil when needed to protect his people. He is also what Rick has come very close to becoming if he continued his methods (and the means of Daryl, who is very close to Negan when it comes to his thrill at murdering people). The problem is that fans don’t like that because they see the heroes as people killing the right people and the villains as those who kill people they love.

That is where Negan is very important, but social media proves that a majority of fans don’t want to look at Rick, Daryl, and Carol as anything but virtuous heroes who only kill to protect those they love and refuse to accept that others in the world should do the same.

Maybe if the showrunners wrote Negan a little more consistently, it would help, but that is not likely. For fans of the comics, Negan is a great character, and those fans love the shades of gray. Mainstream television fans hate shades of gray when it comes to their heroes.

No writer or showrunner will ever be able to solve that problem.

There is also the fact that social media tends to bring out the haters of things while those who love it remain a little more silent. Outspoken fans on social media hated how Season 7 had minimal action, and many called it boring. Outspoken fans on social media have hated Season 8, which has been almost all action.

More from Show Snob

Once again, no writer or showrunner can solve that problem either.

Another interesting thing about social media is that public outcry leads to people falling in line with whatever people are complaining about at the moment. That leads to people to decide that everyone is right and they stop watching the show. The rating’s drop and nothing the writers can do will appease everyone, so the show continues to struggle in the ratings.

However, at the end of the day, ratings are all that matter. AMC needs to figure out what they can do to get people on social media to start talking about things they like so those who listen will give The Walking Dead another chance. Changing showrunners is one way to do it, but no one will compliment anything about the show until something huge happens on screen that makes the majority of them happy.

That is the tricky part.

There is one other problem. Comic book fans love the franchise, and they have favorite characters like Negan, Ezekiel and more. However, mainstream television fans don’t have any investment in these characters and only care about how the show portrays them. If they hate Negan and AMC decides he needs to die, the series will then move entirely away from the comics and can never return.

That could cost the series many of its comic book fans, so the change in ratings could end up offset when a large batch leaves the show while others might return.

The Walking Dead is at a huge turning point right now. They have dropped in the ratings, and AMC is trying to right the ship. Carl, who some think is the main hero that will survive the comics, will die and that was because Scott Gimple, who — according to actor Chandler Riggs father — fired Riggs by killing off his character in the midseason finale.

"“I never trusted Gimple or AMC but Chandler did. I know how much it hurt him. But we do absolutely know how lucky we have been to be a part of it all and appreciate all the love from fans all these years!”"

This decision could hurt the show as much as the possibility that they could inexplicably kill off Negan, something many fans want but a move that would turn our heroes into actual monsters in the end. Good writers are the only thing that could save that from happening.

Scott Gimple has proven that he could write great things (his first two seasons were excellent) but lately, the show has jumped around so much that plot holes and confusion has overtaken many fans.

Next: Skybound Entertainment CEO not worried about The Walking Dead’s ratings

This change is a good move at the end because a show like this has thrived on getting fresh blood in the writer’s rooms and a new showrunner might breathe new life into the series. However, if they aren’t careful about the decisions they make based on fans who change their opinions when the wind blows, The Walking Dead won’t survive much longer.

Home/The Walking Dead