What is it about the Walking Dead that makes it so darn popular?

[dixiegrrrrl]

I noticed while browsing IMDB it's in its 8th season.....

[katmondoo]

1. You have to watch a few episodes, it is just plain interesting

Different every time you watch, hard to explain

[Nictuku]

2. Character Development

I am not a fan of Zombies. At all. But I am hooked on this program. My attraction has to do with the interaction of the various characters, and how they address the bizzare new world they live in, and how they evolve.

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. I figured that might be the case.

( browses cast list)......oh...Lenny James is one of the actors. HIM I like, after seeing him in the superb Line of Duty.

[kimbutgar]

3. Today's repuke party are zombies like in walking dead.

I’ve been watching the show from the beginning. Interesting characters and choices people make to survive. I

As an analogy to today, the zombies are reminisce of today’s fox viewers and orange maggot supporters. They will not give up until they eat and destroy innocent people.

[LuvLoogie]

5. If you can get through the first three episodes you are hooked.

I thought it started out slow, but they took the time early on for character development, and it paid off. The acting and production are great, for the most part. It's tense, poignant, poetic, dark, funny, tragic...

[Siwsan]

6. Unfortunately, I have a strong aversion to watching 'human goo' so I've never tuned in

Everyone I know watches and raves about the show. I tune out when the commercials air.

I barely made it through the original 'Night of the Living Dead', but managed to watch it because it was in black and white. Had it been in color, I'd never have been able to watch. And even still, some of the scenes had me turning away.

I know - weird.

[ret5hd]

7. I watched for a few seasons. Then the subtext started to dawn on me:

I believe the entire show draws on our subconscious fears: Fear of the "other", fear of the "unwashed", fear of those un-named masses washing over our safe ordinary world and taking everything ordinary and good from us.

I think the show exposes us for what we (as a nation) are. Afraid. It speaks to our hatred and fear of "them". It is mostly on a subconscious level, dressed in an exciting story of courage and perseverance. But the reason it resonates so deeply in so many of us is simply fear of "them".

After realizing this, the show mostly lost its appeal to me. The DVR is still set to record it, but I found I deleted an entire season without even watching it. I have on interest anymore.

[hlthe2b]

10. I have always loved biographies of those who survived horrific challenges and that is what I see in

the walking dead. Thus, it is the survival against the odds that is compelling to me, just as in those books I've read for years.

I could not disagree with you more. While zombies are the background challenge, the show could have created any number of catastrophic events to satisfy that need for a near apocalyptic event. That as background challenge is at least equal to those of recreating society, determining how best to balance helping others with the need to mistrust to survive.

The shows I think convey your concern are the ones like 24 and all the myriad anti-terrorism based shows that DO truly paint a fear of the other and the most xenophobic lense.

[MFM008]

8. I watched it

2 full seasons.
Crushed on Rick.
I admit it.
Wanted to see " Coral".. Carl die (Ricks annoying son)
Quit watching when they killed off Hershel
Who was the moral center to me.
Still check in once in a while.

[hlthe2b]

9. It is a survival story at its heart... Not a typical zombie story, in fact one could imagine

it being interesting even without the zombies if something equally catastrophic (and ongoing) had occurred).

Yes, good character development and it doesn't let itself become kitschy. Human threats are equally present to those of the "walkers".

[dixiegrrrrl]

15. I figured it had to be character development as a key.

I know people who dismissed Breaking Bad as a show "that glorifies drugs" and Better Call Saul as "a crooked lawyer" show.

Looks like I will keep my Netflix subscription for a little longer, to check out the Walking Dead.

Do I need to check out Hannibal also???

[Control-Z]

12. I've literally hated all zombie movies, shows...

Last edited Tue Oct 16, 2018, 09:00 PM - Edit history (1)

until WD. But that was only after binge watching the first 2 seasons at my son's request. He knows me well and would never ask me to watch something he thought I would not like so I gave it a try.

Well he was right. I love it and have been watching ever since. We even started having WD family nights while the kids still lived at home. I would cook a dinner that did not resemble zombie-gore in any way. No red sauce, red meat, or zombie, green.

It was never much about the zombies for me. I still cover my eyes/look away when they're attacking people. It really is about the story and the characters dealing in an almost impossible world. Plus it's a well made show.

[dixiegrrrrl]

16. My son tells me he into "Preacher"

Like you, I know my sons' tastes, so will check it out also.

[Blue_Adept]

17. Preacher is just hilariously wacky

It doesn't come close to the source material in a lot of ways but it's one of those hugely unpredictable shows, which in a sea of predictability, is definitely wonderful. It's as close to modern camp as you can get but infused with great character material.

[dixiegrrrrl]

19. Oh..........thank you for clarifying that for me.

Sounds exactly what my "kid" would watch. ( he and I live in different parts of the country).
gonna check out a couple of episodes.

[d_r]

13. It is a soap opera nt

[vercetti2021]

14. Sadly it isn't as popular anymore and it's only going to get worse (spoilers)

Now overtime it's been losing viewers due to Glenn and Abe being brutally killed by Negan in season 7. And from there on, it's been getting worse. Boring story lines, uninteresting characters that no one cares about that are getting too much airtime and don't have development. Then Carl getting killed really drove it home and sent the main star to want to leave.

And now we reach season 9, it's reached it's lowest views since season 1 and then some. Once Rick and Maggie die, it'll drop even more since the story revolves around Rick Grimes. Not Daryl, Carol or anyone. It was Rick's story and now? Once he is gone. It's going to drop even more to undesirable points. I gave up after season 7. I couldn't watch it any longer due to the terrible subplots and stale story.

Thing is Scott Gimple really ruined once a great show. The new show runner won't be able to save the series. It just needs to end and be done for good.

[GeorgeGist]

18. Lots of gruesome violence. Like Game of Thrones.

[mainstreetonce]

20. Yes ,it was character development that got me

But caring about characters is pretty much over.
I will still watch,but it's kind of over.

Some of the latest match ups are ridiculous.

The garbage lady and the priest....really?

[SuprstitionAintthWay]

21. TWD is a repeating cycle of melodrama, inter-human violence, & horror gore.

I like dystopian sci-fi when it's well done, as plausible as possible, and has something intelligent to say. And there's been lots of good stuff to choose from esp. in film and novels in the past decade.

And well done horror is okay to me, but I get nothing out of splatter.

TWD is heavily melodrama, and not very inspired or well written melodrama at that. Their moral issues boil down to "how ruthless, brutal and murderous can we, Rick's gang, be and still retain our humanity?" and "have our survival choices made us as bad as the bad-guys-of-the-season we're fighting?"... these being questions often found in Westerns and war movies. If TWD did something smart with these old tropes, great, but they don't, they just go around and around with them season after season.

This tediousness they break up with bursts of intense violence. The type I hate is the extreme cruelty and sometimes outright sadism characters inflict on each other. The brutal human-on-human violence is a cheap, sensationalistic, and unimaginative way to increase the stakes or heighten the drama, but it's frequently pretty repulsive. Because it's one sentient human inflicting their cruelty on another, it's nastier and more repulsive than the human-zombie violence. Zombie violence being the other source of action... gore... they use to break up the weakness of their repetitive, endless "moral dilemma" melodramas.

A year or so ago a NYT reviewer on TWD's new season at the time said, paraphrasing, such a big show, too bad it has nothing to say. From among my several complaints, that's my biggest. It's been a missed opportunity to do something exceptional in front of a big viewing audience. I hadn't read anywhere that Andrew Lincoln, "Rick," the lead character, was tired of largely just wasting all those years on such a show, but if that is his main (if unspoken) reason for leaving TWD, it wouldn't surprise me. Some of those actors are talented, and big paycheck or not, I would think life's too short to stay in some roles but so long.