8 ways to fix 'The Walking Dead' after this miserable season ends 

8 ways to fix \'The Walking Dead\' after this miserable season ends

Kristi Turnquist | The Oregonian/OregonLive By Kristi Turnquist | The Oregonian/OregonLive The Oregonian

on March 31, 2016 at 4:43 PM, updated March 31, 2016 at 8:21 PM

This Sunday brings yet another season finale for "The Walking Dead." That means it\'s time for another round of frenzied speculation about which character(s) will die, how much we\'ll see of the new Big Bad, Negan, and how Rick\'s group will react.

AMC has been busily beating the drum about the "highly anticipated" Season 6 finale, and bloated its running time from an hour to 90 minutes.

It\'s a familiar ritual. And it\'s getting old. After the most disappointing season in "The Walking Dead" history, buying into AMC\'s teaser ad campaign – oh, look, they released a photo of Negan featuring the back of his neck, holding his barbed wire-wrapped baseball bat! – feels like a sucker\'s bet.

No matter how many times hard-working "Talking Dead" host Chris Hardwick exclaims that each episode is an exciting thrill ride, or that fans are going nuts on social media about this or that character doing this or that thing, Season 6 of "The Walking Dead" has been mostly frustrating, choppy and repetitive.

For every moment that reminds us how good "The Walking Dead" once was -– a brief scene between Carol (Melissa McBride) and Daryl (Norman Reedus), a midseason premiere that resolved some tiresome storylines – there have been many more scenes that fly in the face of what we thought we knew about the characters.

Of course, "The Walking Dead" is still a ratings star for AMC, and a stellar performer among advertiser-prized 18-49 year-old viewers.

But for some of us, tuning in to watch a new episode each week has started to feel less like an edge-of-the-seat treat, and more like an I-can\'t-keep-my-eyes-open chore. And unless showrunner Scott M. Gimple and "Walking Dead" comics creator and TV show executive producer Robert Kirkman make some changes, Season 7 of "The Walking Dead" may keep making the same mistakes that turned Season 6 into a letdown.

How to fix it? Here are some suggestions that ran through my mind every time I made myself watch another uninvolving episode this season:

1. Don\'t make Rick dumb: Rick (Andrew Lincoln) used to be the backbone of the show. He struggled with assuming the role of leader, and sometimes did the wrong thing, thinking it was the right one. After arriving in Alexandria, Rick has gone from not trusting the townsfolk to fight their way out of a wet paper bag to being secure that they have everything they need behind the walls. But, oops, in last week\'s episode, Rick forgets his own advice and rashly heads out on a mission to find the abruptly departed Carol. And then there was his whole fight the zombie herd idea (which didn\'t go well), his getting friendly with Jessie idea (which didn\'t go well), and the kill-first, ask-questions-later strategy with Negan\'s group, the Saviors. That\'s hasn\'t gone so well, either.

2. Don\'t forget who the characters are:  There was zilch  groundwork laid for turning Carol from a pragmatic warrior into a walking anxiety attack who concludes she can\'t kill again, so must leave the people she\'s done so much to protect. First, the season gave us frustratingly little Carol, then it gave her an out-of-nowhere personality flip.

3. Don\'t forget long-standing relationships: Speaking of Carol, the relationship between her and Daryl has been one of the show\'s most subtle and moving. We saw a few brief moments between the two in recent episodes, but for the most part they\'ve barely spoken to each other, or been in the same scene all season.

4. Overnight romances make no sense: So, we waited and waited for Glenn (Steven Yeun) and Maggie (Lauren Cohan) to be reunited. But when they finally were, it was underwhelming. Meanwhile, we saw Rick and Michonne (Danai Gurira) suddenly get together. They\'re a nifty power couple, but this also happened so fast it didn\'t feel satisfying. And as for Carol and Whatsisname, the older Alexandria gentleman with whom she\'s had a similarly out-of-the-blue relationship, the less said the better. No wait, the less said the better really applies to the head-smackingly annoying triangle of Abraham (Michael Cudlitz), Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green) and Rosita (Christian Serratos.) Rosita\'s been on the show since 2014, but we still don\'t know her well enough to care that Abraham dumped her.

5. Why so many characters?: "The Walking Dead" was a great show in its first few seasons because it concentrated on a small core of characters. We spent enough time with them to know who they were as individuals, and how they functioned as a group. But as more characters are added (presumably to fill gaps left by the ones who wind up as zombie victims), they\'re not fleshed out. Most of the Alexandria townspeople might as well be paper dolls for all the depth they have.

6. Zombie Fatigue: We\'ve had six seasons to get an idea of what walkers do. They stagger, they bite, they chomp, they chow down. Rinse and repeat. Zombies aren\'t the most multi-dimensional menace in the world. And with "Fear the Walking Dead" adding to the zombie overload, the undead aren\'t as terrifying as they used to be.

7. Yet another showdown with yet another horrible villain: Comics fans are geeking out over the Season 6 finale arrival of Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), a character from the comics renowned for his charisma and the fact that he\'s a psycho. Fans geeked out over the Governor, too. Morgan is an immensely appealing actor, so maybe the writing will rise to his skills. We need to see Negan as more than just another sadistic bad guy,  i.e., early reports that Negan\'s entrance involves him apparently killing one of Rick\'s group.

8. Comics vs. TV Show Fatigue: Comics can be great sources of material for movies and shows, but the endless yakking about how closely "The Walking Dead" is, or isn\'t, following the story told in the comics has gotten to be as tedious as waiting in a comic con line for an overpriced selfie with a down-the-credits costar of "Babylon 5." The comics are one thing. A TV show is another. Let the show be its own thing.

"The Walking Dead" 90-minute Season 6 finale airs at 9 p.m. Sunday on AMC.

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