Post by reckon on Oct 20, 2016 14:37:14 GMT -5
Insightful article by Ben Lindbergh on theringer.com:
theringer.com/the-walking-dead-amc-season-7-preview-11825d837562#.w66t5zbil
"AMC’s promos for the premiere have made a promise to prospective viewers: “YOU. WILL. KNOW.” The message is half hype, half apology for the frustrating cliff-hanger that followed a clumsy sequence of storytelling decisions at the end of Season 6: Morgan’s predictable regret about refusing to kill killers; ass-kicking Carol’s abrupt turn toward pacifism; Rick’s convoluted plan to protect Alexandria; and The Great Glenn Fake Out, in which the fan favorite and father-to-be emerged unscathed from what were portrayed as unsurvivable circumstances. The unsatisfying finale, “Last Day on Earth,” fell flat not only with critics, but also bombed among the masses, producing by far the lowest average IMDb rating of any episode in the series, according to user-rating data wrangled by GraphTV proprietor Kevin Wu.
The Walking Dead perplexes critics because it’s caught between pulp and prestige. From season to season and showrunner to showrunner, it lurches between being worthy of flattery and being little more than a breeding ground for GIFs of gory walker kills and rants about characters’ dumb decisions. Wu’s data supports The Walking Dead’s reputation for inconsistency. Of 20 popular shows with a similar number of episodes in the IMDb database, only Arrow and Dexter have a higher standard deviation in episode rating (i.e., variation from the average rating) than The Walking Dead’s 0.6. (The shows with the most consistent quality — Curb Your Enthusiasm, Arrested Development, and The Sopranos — have standard deviations lower than 0.3.) And The Walking Dead’s trend is toward more fluctuation, with its sixth season showing the most mercurial user ratings of any season in the 20-show sample aside from Dexter’s much-maligned final season.
Moreover, if the rumors are accurate, the impending demises could sever one or more of the show’s few promising relationships, leaving it even more mired in anomie. During the retrospective producer Denise Huth says, “There will be much more loss than anything they’ve ever encountered before,” which doesn’t seem like a sentence any worn-down Walking Dead watcher would want to hear. Of all the critiques that could be leveled against the show’s first six seasons, “not enough loss” wasn’t high on the list."