The Walking Dead: 5 reasons for the ratings drop

Chandler Riggs as Carl Grimes – The Walking Dead _ Season 8, Episode 9 – Photo Credit: Gene Page/AMC

2. Core characters are getting written off.

Carl, we barely knew ye. From the start, The Walking Dead was just as much about Carl as it was Rick. Even creator Robert Kirkman has said that Carl is the heart and soul of the comic series:

"In a sense, Carl is the heart and soul of the comic series. He started out as a true innocent, and it’s been a fun exploration to watch the world change around him and for him to see the things he has had to go through."

So hey, that seems like a character with excess baggage, right? Why not get rid of him? Since then, Kirkman has defended the show’s killing of Carl, but one has to think that’s a little more of AMC speaking. It’s been noted in the past that Kirkman tends to be protective of his property:

"“I believe Robert wants to maintain a certain amount of his control, and AMC needs Robert for the fan base.”"

To think that Carl is still going strong in the comics only cultivates head scratching as to why he’s been removed from it’s hit show counterpart. Chandler Riggs’ dad’s Facebook post in December indicates that there was more than meets the eye:

The well-being of the series be damned, Riggs’ exit likely came down to the almighty dollar. Combine that will the loss of favorites like Glenn, Abraham and even Shiva, AMC has let their captive audience down. Which leads to…

3. The decline of good showrunners

The Dynamic Duo: Darabont & Mazzara

Season 1 started off beautifully with Frank Darabont at the showrunning helm. With his experience, Darabont effortlessly painted a dystopian world that we could all fear. It’s what reeled in TWD‘s massive audience in the first place. However, production conflicts along with attitude issues made tensions extremely high between him and AMC which led his exit, and in turn, his vision for the show.

With Glen Mazzara assuming the new role as showrunner, The Walking Dead seemed to still be in good hands. Considering he worked on FX’s The Shield with big wigs like Kurt Sutter (Sons of Anarchy), Mazzara certainly had a mind for good drama. However, rumored conflicts between him and Kirkman led to his exit as well, which sparked fellow Shield mate Shawn Ryan to Tweet the following:

Gimple Gets Power

So what does AMC do? They give Scott Gimple the reigns: a man whose only experience as a sole producer was the Disney cartoon Fillmore! 

Yes, that’s right – the man running the hottest series on television never was a showrunner before The Walking Dead. 

After conflicts with Darabont and Mazzara, it’s easy to buy that Gimple is an AMC surrogate who adheres to executives wishes. Whatever saves money, whatever makes money, he’ll go along to get along (refer back to that Riggs’ dad Facebook post).

Now that Gimple has been promoted the chief content officer (meaning he runs everything The Walking Dead), more of the same could be expected.