Walking Dead Season 3 (1 Viewer)

[Josh Dial]

This show is just not that good--nothing happens! The writers have apparently convinced themselves that long periods of poor dialogue can stand in for character development and conflict. Something is off when Spartacus has better writing AND acting. Most of the cast is now phoning in their performances, and have taken to yelling their lines instead of delivering them with any real emotion. Even David Morrissey is sleep walking through his scenes now. The bright side is that Bear McCreary continues to deliver amazing scores, proving each episode why he's the best television composer of the current era.

 

[Joe_H]

Well, Glen Mazzara got fired, so clearly someone wasn't happy with whatever the writers convinced themselves of.

 

[Brett_M]

The Governor thought he was weakening Rick. Really, he just picked him up out of his crazy and pissed him off. The prisoner had to be the most jarring human death in a while on this show. Mid-sentence: pop.

My DVR jumped to a commercial before he was shot. When it returned from the commercial break, he was on the ground being used a human shield. My wife and I said WTF? at the same instant.

 

[Brett_M]

This show is just not that good--nothing happens!  The writers have apparently convinced themselves that long periods of poor dialogue can stand in for character development and conflict.  Something is off when Spartacus has better writing AND acting.  Most of the cast is now phoning in their performances, and have taken to yelling their lines instead of delivering them with any real emotion.  Even David Morrissey is sleep walking through his scenes now. The bright side is that Bear McCreary continues to deliver amazing scores, proving each episode why he's the best television composer of the current era.

This should be an open letter to AMC. They do their best to scuttle popular, well-made shows on purpose. Darabont leaves, Mazarra leaves -- the show suffers. They get what they pay for. Idiots.

 

[Lou Sytsma]

Oh come on Lou.

Where would you like to go? I stand by my post. Two dull episodes in a row. Midseason malaise has struck the show again. This is like the dullest stretches back on the farm again. Much like what Josh is saying.

 

[TravisR]

Most of the cast is now phoning in their performances, and have taken to yelling their lines instead of delivering them with any real emotion.  Even David Morrissey is sleep walking through his scenes now.

I'm not saying this show is amazing but I think Morrissey, Norman Reedus and Michael Rooker are strong enough actors playing interesting enough characters that they make up for the weaker elements of the show. Last week was a slow episode (especially when you consider it was the 'mid-season' premiere and you'd think they'd want to come back with a big episode) but I thought this week was fairly strong.

 

[Richard V]

Show is still highly entertaining in my opinion. You just can't have high intensity excitement EVERY SECOND, no show can sustain that for an entire hour, much less week after week, season after season. If it tried to, I think it would soon turn into a caricature, rather than a drama. And the actors are not "phoning it in" in my opinion, on the contrary they get better every season. Especially Norman Reedus and Scott Wilson. Carl (Chandler Riggs) is turning out to be quite capable as well. This show hasn't let me down yet, and I see no reason that is on the way to jumping the shark.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

This should be an open letter to AMC. They do their best to scuttle popular, well-made shows on purpose. Darabont leaves, Mazarra leaves -- the show suffers. They get what they pay for. Idiots.

Although it should be noted that Mazarra is the showrunner through the end of the current season. So if you don't like what you're getting now, it's on his shoulders.

 

[Lou Sytsma]

You just can't have high intensity excitement EVERY SECOND, no show can sustain that for an entire hour, much less week after week, season after season.

I certainly have no expectations of that but where the show has failed to date is in establishing most of the cast as fleshed out characters. I'll quote Alan Sepinwall over at HitFix since he nicely captures my issues with most of the characters:

Glen Mazzara has said in the past that he looked to "Lost" for inspiration in running "The Walking Dead," and that's especially clear in an episode like "Home," which focuses so much on one of the favorite "Lost" subjects of all: who's the leader, and should they continue to have that job? So in Woodbury, the Governor tells Andrea that the town might be better off with her running things until he's over the recent attack. And at the prison, Glen struggles to lead an undermanned group while Rick is going walkabout in the tall grass, chasing after Lori's ghost. But the whole thing feels half-hearted. The Governor isn't genuinely offering Andrea the job; he's just trying to distract her while he's off mounting an attack on Rick's group. And the prison scenes never really take the idea of Glen running things seriously; it's taken as a given that he's not really up for the job and will likely screw things up before Rick gets his head on straight again. Where "Lost" liked to shake up its leadership structure every dozen episodes or so and see how the group functioned with with Locke or Sawyer or Sayid running things instead of Jack, "The Walking Dead" operates from the default that Rick is and always should be the one everyone else takes their cues from.

Full review - here. Half-hearted is exactly how the conflicts in this episode felt to me too. Right now the only characters that have any depth to them are Daryl and Merle - for me.

 

[Josh Dial]

Thanks for the link, Lou. I agree with the author on the failed implementation of a LOST theme. That touches on what is perhaps my biggest problem with the show: it doesn't know the story it wants to tell, or the themes (or conflicts, but I'll use theme) it wants to explore--or at least it doesn't explore them fully. This critique applies equally to the comic, but I'll only talk about the show here.
There are a number of interesting themes the show could explore, and indeed it touches on a few of them, but after two and a half seasons, we (as an audience) are basically right where we were when the show started. Notable themes include family, father/son, community, altruism, selfishness, and the aforementioned leadership. We get glimpses of each one, but nothing is fully explored, and often times were revisit the exact same ground already covered. Contrast the exploration of the father/son theme in The Walking Dead to the same theme in Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Perhaps it's unfair to compare a TV show to a novel, but I think everyone would agree the book explores the theme with emotion and beautiful insight, while the show merely tacks it on.
Look at the way Mad Men explores the theme of personal re-invention, and asks the question "can a man truly change and start over; can a man sell a new version of himself?" By the end of the first season, the show was exploring some really interesting answers to this question in Don Draper.
Heck, even Spartacus has managed to explore questions of justice and human dignity better than The Walking Dead has explored anything!

 

[Richard V]

Feel free to disagree with me, but when the show "slowed down" during the Hershel's Farm/Searching for Sophia episodes, and it seemed to be that the characters were being more fleshed out and interpersonal conflicts being explored, then there was clamoring for "more action" and "why doesn't something happen?". Seems like the writers have to walk a tightrope. Get more character examination and people rant for "more action". Give them plenty of zombie decapitations and major character deaths, and people wish "for more character depth".

 

[ScottH]

Personally, I don't think the show has been the same since the first season. I still enjoy it though.
I would like to see an eagle's eye view of the prison. It seems every week there's a new secret passage in that the walkers find. Can't they lock that down? It can't be that big.

 

[TravisR]

I would like to see an eagle's eye view of the prison.  It seems every week there's a new secret passage in that the walkers find.  Can't they lock that down?  It can't be that big.

Speaking of which, are Tyrese and company just hiding out in one of those hallways during the gun battle? Not that I can't blame them for not running outside when they hear the gun battle from Heat happening.

 

[Walter Kittel]

Speaking of which, are Tyrese and company just hiding out in one of those hallways during the gun battle?

Robert Kirkman said on Sunday's Talking Dead that Tyrese and his group had left the prison after Rick's meltdown. The way he answered the question though, I suspect that they will reappear in Season 3. - Walter.

 

[Josh Dial]

Originally Posted by Richard V
Feel free to disagree with me, but when the show "slowed down" during the Hershel's Farm/Searching for Sophia episodes, and it seemed to be that the characters were being more fleshed out and interpersonal conflicts being explored, then there was clamoring for "more action" and "why doesn't something happen?". Seems like the writers have to walk a tightrope. Get more character examination and people rant for "more action". Give them plenty of zombie decapitations and major character deaths, and people wish "for more character depth".

My issue with character development is that during the opportunities (lulls in action), the time actually isn't being spend on development. Just because the characters are all talking doesn't necessarily mean they are being explored or fleshed out by the writers. It's fine to introduce conflicts (and I would argue it's important to do so) during these moments, but when they are simply re-hashed at every action break, it begins to look like the writers simply can't craft mature dialogue.
If my Mad Men example, above, was unfair, then Fringe is perhaps a better example. Not every scene or episode advanced the major arcs, and indeed there was a lot of episodes where the season story was put on hold. However, the father/son relationship between Walter and Peter developed in virtually every week, even when it wasn't a major theme in a particular episode. Similarly, Walter's struggle with his past misdeeds drove the story, and who the character was at the end of the series was very different from episode one.
I'm just not getting anything remotely satisfying from The Walking Dead in this regard.

 

[Walter Kittel]

Feel free to disagree with me, but when the show "slowed down" during the Hershel's Farm/Searching for Sophia episodes, and it seemed to be that the characters were being more fleshed out and interpersonal conflicts being explored, then there was clamoring for "more action" and "why doesn't something happen?". Seems like the writers have to walk a tightrope. Get more character examination and people rant for "more action". Give them plenty of zombie decapitations and major character deaths, and people wish "for more character depth".

Certainly how I see it. I enjoyed Season 2 quite a bit with the focus on character development and am not one of those who clamored for more zombie kills (so I am probably biased in that direction.) While I don't think that character development and action are mutually exclusive I do believe that the writers have to work to hit the right balance between those two concepts. I'm enjoying the new season and thought that Sunday's episode was a step up from the disappointing return from hiatus for the series. - Walter.

 

[TravisR]

Robert Kirkman said on Sunday's Talking Dead that Tyrese and his group had left the prison after Rick's meltdown.

OK, I didn't catch Talking Dead yet. Good move on Tyrese's part though. If I was him, I'd have seen Rick talking to people that aren't there and said "You know, this prison seems safe and all but we can probably handle being on the road a little bit longer." Needless to say, something will get him back there. Tyrese and Merle should get along well.

 

[Jeffery_H]

Certainly how I see it. I enjoyed Season 2 quite a bit with the focus on character development and am not one of those who clamored for more zombie kills (so I am probably biased in that direction.) While I don't think that character development and action are mutually exclusive I do believe that the writers have to work to hit the right balance between those two concepts. I'm enjoying the new season and thought that Sunday's episode was a step up from the disappointing return from hiatus for the series. - Walter.

That's mostly my feelings too. I am still really enjoying the show as a whole and really like the pacing where you get slower character shows and then mainly action culminating from the buildup prior. That's sort of how Lost did it and that is one of my all time favorite shows. Rick is NOT crazy in terms of going off the deep end. He is suffering from PTSS (Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome) due to what he has been through. Just like in real life people suffer from combat issues, so is Rick. If this was trying to be realistic (despite the zombies I know) you would see many more people break down or just do weird things since their mind is overloaded and can't cope. So far, I like how they are dealing with Rick's descent and want to see how they handle it. It's still one of the best shows around and keep in mind the zombies are just the driving mechanism for characters and that is what this show is about, not the horror or blood and gore action.

 

[Richard V]

It's still one of the best shows around and keep in mind the zombies are just the driving mechanism for characters and that is what this show is about, not the horror or blood and gore action.

This

 

[Joe_H]

This

And I think what people like yourself and Jeffery_H who are saying that are continually overlooking or ignoring is how people are saying they're fine with character moments, if they're well written, but they're just not on this. Talking for a while doesn't equate to character development. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy the show, but I wouldn't call it quality television.