The Return of The Walking Dead and The Half-Life of Modern TV Dramas

For those loyal and rabid fans, there are few sights sweeter than the massive banner at comic-con NYC this week reminding them:  the fifth season of The Walking Dead is nigh.

AMC has touted The Walking Dead as "the most popular show on television" for a while now (It has broken records in tv ratings for a cable show) and this Sunday's premiere figures to once again be a ratings bonanza for the network.

I was a late comer to The Walking Dead, I started watching it on rerun marathons shortly before the start of season three.  From the start it had an overly dramatic soap opera-like quality.  Even for a show dealing with a post apocalyptic near future featuring flesh eating zombies, the show could get pretty silly.  Still, its pulpy goodness was a lot of fun.  AMC has made a network on pulp.  Hell, the network's best show was about a high school teacher who became a meth cook.  Pulp is a great starting place for a tv drama.  The hard part is having the writers and cast to keep it afloat once the new car smell fades.

The Walking Dead has always suffered from a slew of unlikable and/or annoying characters, but in the first few seasons, the premise was still fresh and the relationships between the characters were dynamic enough to keep people watching.  Three seasons down the line the show has become contrived, dreary, and tired.  But ratings are as strong as ever.

I can't tell you how many times there are elongated fire fights in this show and no one gets shot.  Or how many times whole groups of people get overrun and wiped out by a zombie hoard... except, of course, for the plucky heroes.  Characters introduced for the sole purpose of being killed off in few hours.  Sitting watching the screen wanting to scream, "Just kill name of frustratingly stupid character already!". But ratings are as strong as ever.

All of this before we even get into the fact that AMC is a major believer in the "half season" programming structure which slows plot developments to the speed of molasses.  

Fans had grown sick of the insufferable "hero", Andrea. long before she was finally killed off.

Even most fans of the show will admit that the show has flaws.  Obnoxious "heroes", extremely convenient plot twists, entire story lines that you'd love to be able to fast forward through.  Their defense: almost any show suffers from the same problems and The Walking Dead has enough redeeming qualities to make up for all its faults.

It is true that many shows, even televisions most popular, suffer from similar- issues.  The crowned jewel of television at present, Game of Thrones, is often criticized for its scatterbrain storytelling and complex plot network.  What Game of Thrones also has, however, is mass critical acclaim for the things it does right:  the breath taking special effects and set work, its complex and relatable characters, award winning acting.  The major disconnect for The Walking Dead is its complete and utter lack of praise (particularly in recent seasons) from critics and sparse award collection.

But ratings are as strong as ever.

This is not an uncommon phenomenon of television.  Shows today can last for years thanks to a strong start.     True Blood lasted for lasted for seven seasons, despite only really putting out one great season (it's first) and barely even being watchable by its third.  Boardwalk Empire made it to season five despite being DOA after Season 2.  Sons of Anarchy, Mad Men, Six Feet Under, the slow dimming of the lights for small screen dramas is all too ordinary.  As much as anything, it draws attention to how incredible shows like The Sopranos and Breaking Bad were.

If you were the main character of a show that gave you 6 glorious seasons, you'd have a smug smile on your face too.

The reason is simple, people are too invested to bring themselves to change the channel.  All that time on the couch simply to see how something is gonna end.  It is amazing how many people will continue to giving a show hours of their lives for something they could just read in 15 minutes on a website.  Who dies?  How?  Why?  Who wins?  Okay.  Time to eat a sandwich.

There are worse things you can watch than The Walking Dead.  I watched the entire first season of Arrow (and kind of liked it), so I know what I'm talking about.  People not willing to watch serialized dramas is the reason why network tv is full of sitcoms and reality television.  Still, its hard not to roll your eyes at people getting all excited for something that hasn't been good since 2012.

The Walking Dead, you may not be going away anytime soon, but you're overrated.

10 Worst TV Protagonists

The anti-hero is a popular choice for tv shows these days.  The trick of good writing is creating a flawed character with outward faults and inward turmoil and still making the audience love them.  Just because they can be fun or charismatic we can forget how awful these people truly are.  So now, I have taken it upon myself to remind all you good people just who you are rooting for when you turn on your TV.

*Two ground rules:  The show must have been on air in the last year and the character does not lose points for being involved in a criminal enterprise.  This is purely based on the flaws in the protagonist's character.

10.  Jax Teller - Sons of Anarchy

I don't mind that he is the head of a murderous, drug dealing biker gang.  But does he really have to be such a self righteous prick about it?

9. Rick Grimes - The Walking Dead

Rick Grimes is a good man trying to find a way for his family in a hard world, I get it.  But he cries way too much, worries about all the wrong things (It's a ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, Rick!) and for a man that has done the things he has, he's sort of a wuss.

8. Sansa Stark  - Game of Thrones

Lady Stark has come a long way since the show's beginning and she has more than paid for her naivety, but I still watch episode 2 of season 1 and get so mad that she sided with Joffrey against her sister.  Joffrey, what a dick.

7. Jack Crawford - Hannibal

 

We may not have to worry about Jack's utter stupidity anymore now because he might be dead (along with everyone else), not that he wouldn't deserve it.  Seriously, what a freaking boob this guy is.  Now, I'm not alaw enforcement officer, but if I was, I'd like to think I'd be smart enough to not just collect evidence but use it to catch the bad guy.  Spoiler Alert, the bad guy is Hannibal!  Get it together Jack.

6. Jack Bauer - 24

I really don't think I need to explain this one.  George Bush's wet dream of foreign policy personified.  Bauer spends most of his days torturing people and shouting "go, go, go"!  The only reason he doesn't end up higher on this list is that he's so ridiculous I can't take him seriously.

5. Nucky Thompson - Boardwalk Empire

The sin of Nucky Thompson ultimately is not that he is cruel, or sadistic, or greedy, but rather, he is boring.  I love Steve Buscemi in nearly everything he has ever done, but in Boardwalk, I fear he was woefully miscast.

4. Jessie Pinkman - Breaking Bad

Oh Jessie, how we all loved you so.  Jessie rarely ever hurt anyone intentionally and his greatest victim was always himself, but that does not change the fact that a multitude of his selfish and ill-conceived actions led to the misery of scores of people.  R.I.P. Andrea.

4. Martin Hart - True Detective

Supremely unlikable and depressingly realistic, Det. Martin Hart is a terrible father and worse husband.  Hero to the outside world and destroyer of his own, Hart is a someone that you know exists in many police stations around the world.  We don't like him, but we must root for him because of the evil he faces and the hope that he can change.

3.  Sookie Stackhouse - True Blood

An obnoxious, empty-headed, selfish girl who would let everyone around her die horribly as long as it meant hot guys fawn over her.  Even fans of the show hate her.

2. Walter White - Breaking Bad

So, just to sum up, Walter manufactured a highly potent version of meth, teamed up with nazis, murdered dozens of people, responsible for ruining the lives of countless more all because he was too proud to accept charity from a friend?  Okay got it.  At least he had the decency to feel bad about it after.

1. Don Draper - Mad Men

You have to hand it to Jon Hamm and the writers of Mad Men for how effortlessly they get fans to root for and like a character as awful as Don Draper.  Utterly self-absorbed, emtionally abusive and manipulative, Don leaves few standing in his wake.  He has demons from his past, but even those circumstances are largely of his own creation and factor only passingly into his actions.  He never met a woman he wouldn't screw or a man he wouldn't screw over, and what's worse, he doesn't think there is anything remotely wrong with that.

2013 Year in Review: Show of the Year, Breaking Bad

It may not have been perfect, but to name any other would be laughable.  Breaking Bad was without any question, the most hyped, most talked about, most watched quality show on television in 2013.

In what was quite possibly the most suspenseful eight hours of television ever, fans watched as Walter White’s choices came home to roost.  It was a season that packed all the bombast of one thousand pounds of dynamite into a single container drum, then show creator Vince Gilligan took that drum and had an audience sit in the room and watch as Walter set off two dozen bottle rockets off and hope for the best.

The series hit a fever pitch during the 6^th and 7^th of the final eight episodes, To’hajiilee (pronounced To-ha-jeal-ee) and “Ozymandias”.  There may have been no more tense moment in televised story-telling than when Skylar White had to decide to either go for the telephone (to call the police) or the steak knife.

It wasn’t a flawless final season.  Fan favorite, Jesse Pinkman, was giving surprisingly little to do – and even less to say – in the closing episodes as he was relegated to a plot device for Walter’s story rather than given something meaningful to accomplish to bring closure to his own.

Critics and fans alike seemed a little discontented with how predictable the final turns of the plot seemed, but in a way, it was the most surprising thing the writers could have come up with. Breaking Bad, a show that thrilled viewers by always being one step ahead of them, had every fan saying “this is what I wish would happen, but I know it won’t” only to give them exactly what they wanted.

The ending was never going to satisfy all of our wildest machinations, but much like with Walter himself, it was the ending we deserved.