The 5 Worst Mistakes The Walking Dead Has Made Other Than Andrew Lincoln Leaving The Show – Forbes

Andrew Lincoln says it was a "terrible decision" to leave 'The Walking Dead.' But the showrunners ... [+] have made worse calls in the past.

Andrew Lincoln has come right out and said it: Leaving The Walking Dead was a terrible decision and he misses working and living in Georgia.

"I came back home for the kids, and now they're sick of me, and I wish I'd never left. It's bullshit! It was a terrible decision! [laughs]" he said during a virtual reunion of the shows cast in which he heaped much praise on the state of Georgia and his ex-cast members.

And its true! It was a terrible decision to leave The Walking Dead. Not only did the show improve drastically after Angela Kang took overRick Grimes was only a part of the first half of Season 9AMC has also announced an end-date in the not-so-distant future.

In fact, there are just 30 more episodes of The Walking Dead if you add up the 6 extra episodes coming to Season 10 (which will be more of an anthology including glimpses into the past) and the super-charged 24-episode Season 11. If Lincoln had stuck around, hed have only had to film eight more episodes in Season 9, 16 in Season 10, possibly a couple of the 6 extra episodes, and then the 24-episode final season.

123 episodes of The Walking Dead aired before Rick was whisked off in a helicopter by the CRM. 54 episodes come after his departure (assuming he never shows up in Season 11 and only makes an appearance in the Rick Grimes movies). Why not just stick it out until the bitter end? Then again, for all Lincoln knew, AMC could have dragged the show on for 20 seasons.

Lincolns decision to leave the show may have been terrible but its not even close to the worst mistakes made on The Walking Dead. In fact, it doesnt even make the top five, though Id say its definitely in the top 10. And at least it was his to make rather than the whims of a capricious producer or executive.

Here are 5 other terrible decisions that AMC and the shows producers have made over the years.

Frank Darabont and Jon Bernthal

This is where things took a real turn for the worse, and it was so early on in the show that I still to this day wonder what would have happened if Darabont had stayed on as showrunneror if hed gotten a greenlight from HBO and never turned to AMC to begin with.

Ive started re-watching The Walking Dead from the beginning and its just crazy how much better the show used to be. I should do some reviews of the first couple seasons since Im pretty sure I didnt start writing those until Season 3.

It was also . . . different. Zombies were different. They were more human. The little girl zombie with the doll. The zombies using rocks to break through glass doors. That sort of thing. But thats more of an observation than a critique.

The show just used to be more artful. The cinematography was more interesting. There was greater attention to detail. The writingand especially the dialoguewas a lot better and more realistic. People acted more humantheres a pretty graphic sex-scene in the opening moments of Episode 2 which made me think about just how sexless this show has become since.

Darabont was fired during the second season, as he was apparently hard to get along with, and would write curse-laden emails about the incompetence of those around him to AMC. The termination was blamed on his volatile and disturbing interactions with the staff and talent, according to AMCs lawyers. Darabont is still facing off against AMC in a $300 million lawsuit which will finally go to trial in 2021.

Perhaps instead of firing Darabont, AMC should have listened to him. Shorter seasons, more quality control, better writing and directionsurely these things would have led to a better quality show overall. In retrospect, I can think of no worse decision in the history of The Walking Dead than removing the man who came up with the TV adaptation in the first place.

Carl Grimes

Rick leaving became a lot less of a big deal when Carl was killed off in a desperate bid by AMC to boost ratings and shock viewers. Or maybe showrunner Scott Gimple just genuinely didnt think Chandler Riggs was up to the task. Who knows? There are plenty of great and plenty of mediocre actors on this show, especially now that its cast has ballooned to such epic proportions (more on that in a moment).

Whatever the case, killing off Carl fundamentally changed what this show was supposed to be about. The story of The Walking Dead is the story of Rick Grimes and his son, Carl. More even than Rick, its the story of Carl, who came of age during the apocalypse and who was supposed to go on and become a leader in his own right, recalling his adventures and struggles as he and his father and their group staked out a claim in this brave new world.

So much for all that.

The whole point of this show was to follow Rick and Carl through to the bitter end. Instead, the Grimes are all gone except for Judith. Even Michonne took off, abandoning both Judith and her and Ricks son. Its the Carol and Daryl show noweven though they quite literally have an upcoming spin-off after all is said and done.

What a shame.

The Walking Dead

Sometimes its great to have one showrunner with a singular vision to lead a TV show from one season to the next. I still wish AMC had kept Dave Erickson onboard as the showrunner for Fear The Walking Dead. It was just starting to get (really) good in Season 3 when he was replaced.

So theres no perfect argument here when it comes to one showrunner or multiple showrunners over time. Darabont was showrunner for just one season and change. Then Glen Mazzara was promoted for Seasons 2 and 3.

After that, Scott Gimple took the reins and remained showrunner for five seasons4, 5, 6, 7 and 8. Seasons 4 and 5 were both pretty good. Season 6 was a mixed bag. But clearly something went horribly, horribly wrong by Season 7.

At this point, it might have been wise to replace Gimple (who went on to become a sort of Walking Dead content overseer) with fresh blood. Clearly he was a competent showrunner during the first couple years, but something snapped by the time Negan swaggered onto the scene, and AMC would have done well to change course before Season 8 began filming.

It wasnt until Season 9 that AMC wised up and brought in Angela Kang who, while far from perfect, breathed new life into the show in Seasons 9 and 10. Its still very much The Walking Dead, filled with all sorts of annoying ticks and weird character choices and plot holes, but its a lot more enjoyable and the overall quality has drastically improved since Kang took over.

I wonder what would have happened if Gimple hung up his hat at the end of Season 6 and someone else took over for the Savior era. Its possible it would have been just as bad (one cant imagine anything much worse) but its also possible that wed have gotten a fresh take on the series and those two seasons would have been a lot better and more focused.

Alexandria was the beginning of the end for 'The Walking Dead.'

You cant blame all the problems from Season 6 onward on Gimple, though. Some of it is a fault in the source material itself. The Alexandria Safe-Zone appeared in issue 69 of the comic book series, and everything changed after thatin both the comics and in the show.

Our wandering band of nomadic survivors was suddenly rooted in this rather boring safe-zone, dealing with a whole bunch of new characters we all had a pretty hard time relating to or liking much. Quite suddenly, the cast expanded pretty drastically, and despite a lot of the original Alexandrians dying, things only got worse from there.

Alexandria wasnt the only new community. Somehow the show went from having a roaming band of survivors who had pretty bad luck at actually settling downthe prison didnt work out, and neither did Terminusto setting up shop in Alexandria and making friends in Hilltop, where they were quickly recruited to take the fight to Negan and the Saviors. Whereupon they also ran into the Riders Of Rohan, er, the Kingdom. And then the charming ladies of Oceanside.

Its like feature creep, but with post-apocalyptic communities, each with their own gimmick. Hilltop had Gregory. He was the gimmick. The Saviors had Negan and they were all Negan and they took your stuff like some kind of zombie-age mafia. The Oceansiders were all female and they will kill you on sight, boy. And over at Ye Olde Kingdom, theres a king with a tiger who talks like someone at a Ren-faire.

The cast just kept getting bigger and bigger, to the point where there was little time for our main characters, even less time to establish new ones, and as the budget expanded to account for all these actors, it retracted in other important ways, like special effects (remember Rick on that pile of trash, or that ridiculous deer), dialogue and cinematography, all of which nosedived as the show expanded its boundaries, communities and ambitions.

Glenn Rhee was the moral glue of the show. It all fell apart after he died.

Did you know that if you search the name Glenn on Google Images youll basically just get a bunch of pictures of Steven Yeun? Thats how important his character was to the show.

And I realize that they just followed the comics and killed Glenn off in (largely) the same way that he was killed in the source material, but to hell with that. The comics and the show are, and always have been, two vastly different pieces of entertainment.

Andrea was a great character in the comics whose role was largely taken over by Michonne in the TV show. Andrea in the TV show, especially after the first season, was almost intolerable to watch. She remains one of my top 5 most hated Walking Dead characters.

If they can kill off Andrea and add in new characters like Daryl and flip around roles so that Michonne is at least part Andrea, you can decide to spare Glenn. Its not that I was happy seeing Abraham die, but Abraham wasnt ever as fundamentally important to this show as Glenn.

Glenn was the moral glue that held everything together. He was a character you could root for when you stopped rooting for almost everyone else. He was someone who was likable, brave, clever and sweet. He was a good guy, through and through, and we needed him and others like him as the show became increasingly bleak.

The Walking Dead has a few characters with absolute plot armor, including Michonne, Daryl and Carol. Everyone else can be killed off at a moments notice. And while Kang has begun to kill off characters were less fond of, historically The Walking Dead has killed off too many we actually like, leaving us with a still-burgeoning, but less relatable cast.

Jesus was just finally getting some good material when he was killed. Siddiq was one of the few genuinely likable characters left when he was murdered. Both their deaths were really cool moments of storytellingJesus killed by the first Whisperer attack in a pretty epic sword-fighting scene; Siddiq murdered by Dante the spy in a horrific moment of brutalitybut it just leaves the show feeling so empty.

While I think Alexandria marked the end of the beginning, it was Glenns death that marked the beginning of the end for this show. By that I mean, things started to go downhill in Season 6 (think of all the weird turns and dirty tricks played in that season) but they really went to pot when Negan showed up and smashed in Glenns head. After that we got Seasons 7 and 8, two of the worst seasons of TV Ive ever watched (though maybe not quite as bad as the recent seasons of Fear The Walking Dead).

The Walking Dead really did start off great, but pretty quicklyand largely following Darabonts departure and the move to 16-episode seasonsthings started to fall apart. It didnt really start to get bad until the sixth season, and even that season had plenty to love. Now that were past the dark days of Season 7 and Season 8, the show has picked back up, though the Whisperer conflict was quite the slog after a while.

Hopefully the next 30 episodes (which comprise about 17% of the total number of episodes) will continue to impress, and not be quite so hit or miss.

What are your biggest issues with The Walking Dead? What would you say are its biggest mistakes? And did Andrew Lincoln make a mistake leaving the show instead of sticking with it?

Let me know on Twitter or Facebook.

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The 5 Worst Mistakes The Walking Dead Has Made Other Than Andrew Lincoln Leaving The Show - Forbes