The Walking Dead: 5 reasons for the ratings drop

Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes – The Walking Dead _ Season 8, Episode 9 – Photo Credit: Gene Page/AMC

Episode 10 of Season 8 took a significant ratings tumble Sunday night. Here are five reasons as to why The Walking Dead is not being eaten alive by the masses anymore.

Sunday night wasn’t a positive evening for showbiz. The 90th Academy Awards saw it’s lowest ratings turnout in the ceremony’s history and The Walking Dead continues to look like a dead show walking when you consider it’s dwindling fan base.

As a matter of fact, the once massive hit has seen it’s lowest ratings since the penultimate episode of Season 1. Season one. The popularity of the show sure looked much brighter back then, but now it’s on the opposite side of the bell curve.

This past Sunday, TWD was only able to capture a 2.9 rating in the coveted 18-49 age demographic. Collider breaks down some of the numbers for you:

"The last time the series fell below a 3.0 rating was Season 1’s penultimate episode “Wildfire,” which drew a 2.8 rating. Even looking just at the total number of viewers, that 6.8 million is a low we haven’t seen since the Season 2 episode “Better Angels,” which hit 6.89 million viewers."

Eesh. That’s six years of higher viewership. However, Collider‘s Adam Chitwood does keep an optimistic outlook:

"Moreover, while The Walking Dead ratings hit a new low, it was still easily the top-rated and most-watched cable show of Sunday by far. When you look at the TV landscape as a whole, and the uniqueness of actual appointment-viewing television, The Walking Dead is still far from being on life support"

Not on life support? Sure, but losing a massive amount of their fan base? That’s something to be extremely concerned about. Viewing habits have rapidly changed, but there is plenty of finger pointing to go around.

(Warning: Spoilers to follow, my friends)

Norman Reedus as Daryl Dixon – The Walking Dead _ Season 8, Episode 11 – Photo Credit: Gene Page/AMC

1. Character story arcs are all sorts of screwed up

Pick any character on the show and you will find that they are not the same one you rooted for when they were at their best. Take Daryl for example: with a show containing so many cast members, everyone’s favorite bow-toting redneck had a lot of layers to him. He formed unique bonds with the likes of Carol, Beth and Aaron. Relationships like that gave him more of purpose than just some backwoods boy burying a bowie knife in an undead skull.

Recently? Daryl’s been just a worker bee. Nothing pushes him forward but survival and the mass killing of Saviors. Fine for a supporting character, but Daryl is a keystone of series. His story has been one of the major forces that drive The Walking Dead. What we’ve been seeing out of Daryl has been half-cooked at best.

Decisions, Decisions…

And don’t get me started on the universally wide indecisiveness. “Do we kill or don’t we kill?” The Watching Dead podcast by Bald Move labels this phenomenon as “Morgalizing” (since Morgan has been the most guilty of such a character crime).

From Rick, to Jesus, to even Negan, everyone has “Morgalized” a time or two. Additionally, there is no sound reason as to who our heroes are going to worry about 86ing.

Even as recent as “Honor” we had Carol and Ezekiel show concern for Gavin, Negan’s weapon guy. I’m not going out on a limb by stating the audience has about zero attachment to Gavin. Rick’s gang has killed plenty. Fretting over a foe’s existence should mean very little at this point in the race. Unfortunately, we got at least 30 minutes of that “him-haw” two Sundays ago with the two-dimensional Gavin. Talk about filler.

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.

4. Audience goodwill has been severely damaged

The Walking Dead has totally broken the trust circle. The perfect example of this is the handling of good ol’ Glenn.

First, we were left with the visually implied cliffhanger of Glenn getting torn apart in front of a dumpster only to realize it was a dead Nicholas being devoured (who, by the way, was also very “Morgalized” over).

That was nothing in comparison to the cliffhanging blunder at the end of season six. Leaving us in suspense of who Negan MDK’ed with Lucille for half a year was tone-deaf at best. And instead of beating Abraham & Glenn to death, Negan decided to beat a dead horse. We had to wait half the episode to get that reveal. Not the greatest way to maintain your fan base.

5. The show has lost its shock value.

The good kind of shock value, I mean. Sure, seeing Carl die was flummoxing, but that was more of a “what are you doing” kind of shock.

When a fan-favorite would get caught up in a hoard of insurmountable odds, you would get that “fight-or-flight” feeling. It really seemed like no one was safe. That’s partially why people are fans of Game of Thrones. Every character from minor to major could die at any waking moment. The Walking Dead used to wear that badge with honor.

Next: 15 most influential women on TV

Not anymore. Witnessing a stalwart character get horrifically torn to pieces is a rare thing nowadays. Consequently, the deaths of Herschel and Noah lingered in my mind for weeks.

Now it just seems like there isn’t a whole lot more to invest in. Agree? Disagree?  Keep the conversation going in the comments section below and don’t forget to follow us on Facebook & Twitter for more on your favorite shows!