Thursday, December 8, 2016

Negan Is Ruining The Walking Dead

Maybe it's just the producers sticking with the basic plot in the graphic novels, but Negan is likely to be the downfall of this series.  The people calling the shots have demonstrated a shocking lack of intuition as to how the audience will respond to their choices that it's really surprising.  First, after an entire season (6) anticipating the arrival of Negan, basically turning the whole season into one big cliffhanger, they imposed yet another huge cliffhanger upon the viewers by leaving his choice of victim(s) unresolved.  This really killed a large part of my interest in the show, and I guess my opinion of myself as fairly average demographically speaking proved to be true in the reactions I've seen in the time since then.

The show has been nothing but one big snore since season 7 began, and with the mid season break coming up, it's looking like the show could be headed for its demise sooner than a lot of us expected.  My own reasons for believing this are probably the same as a lot of people, considering that I'm in complete agreement with most of the criticism I'm seeing these days. 

When I first met Negan in the graphic novels, I thought "Okay, this villain just isn't believable."  I didn't really think much at that point about how this would translate into the tv show... maybe it was a defense mechanism, my subconscious wouldn't let me go there.  Now that it's actually out there, on the screen, it's really hitting me how unbelievable this character is.  Forget the major gaffe with the season 6 cliffhanger, the man just doesn't work.  I realize that in order to watch a show like this, the viewer must accept certain things which strain credulity, but this goes way beyond what's acceptable.  At least for me.  Yeah, we accept the concept of the re-animated dead.  I get that this, compared to a charismatic, murderous megalomaniac, should be the tougher sell, but it's not.  The tough sell is where the hell did Negan come from in the first place?  For the life of me, I can't come up with any scenario which explains where Negan came from and what he did in the pre-apocalypse world.  This guy could not possibly have held any sane position in the real world.  The only places a person with his qualities could have been are prison or a mental institution.  I suppose he could have already been a cult leader before the world went to hell, but come on, how likely is that?  Plus, the murderous quality couldn't have just developed overnight, or even in a year or two.  There's also nothing in what they've shown us that makes me believe that someone, somewhere along the way, wouldn't have taken him out by now.  He's a psychopath with a bat.  There's no CSI, no forensics, one of his own people could take him out at any time.  In my opinion there's no way this guy just created this persona as an adaptive response to an apocalypse situation, and no way he's ruled his people for this long without being taken out.  Believing in the dead walking is easy compared to believing Negan could even exist.  Even more frightening, if the producers make the poor decision to stick to the graphic novels, they're seriously going to lose nearly their entire audience.

Season 7 has been completely boring due to the fragmentation of the whole composition of the show.  It's all over the place with no discernible point, no element that ties it all together except, of course, for Negan himself.  They're spreading the show way too thin and it's only resulting in apathy and disinterest.  In seasons 4, 5, and 6, we spent so much time going down every stinking back road in existence and NEVER stop anywhere it would actually make sense to hole up for a while, until they met the Alexandrians.  I've been tired of the "dumbass" approach they've been taking for three years now.  The theme that the dead take a back seat to surviving humans is wearing so thin that it's like someone's "lucky underwear" which is held together by a few threads and would blow away like dandelion spores in a stiff enough wind.  The show has become nothing more than a soap opera with an occasional run-in with the dead just for color.  And seriously, they really need to stop having dozens of walkers just showing up in absolutely every section of woods they pass through.  The population density just doesn't cover it.  After two or three years, the walkers would either be so spread out that it would be totally rare to run into one, or they would gather into herds which would be equally rare. 

I really think it's time to give the audience some REALITY for a change.  I know this wouldn't last long term, but I think the viewers need a break from the soap opera and relentless barrage of villains making life difficult.  In season 2, I had my doubts about the wisdom they were exhibiting by not looking for a smart, safe, easily defensible location.  I went on Google Earth, found the quarry they were at in season 1, and in only about a minute I found the perfect location about thirty miles north-northeast.  It's called Lake Sidney Lanier, it has a large island in the middle served by one road.  This would be perfect, just blow the main bridge in and pass out the fishing gear.  Plus, all they'd need to do is use boats to reach the marina, then use trucks to go scavenging.  The island sports a large resort which would house everyone comfortably, and two golf courses which would make beautiful farmland.  I think that though this may seem laid back and even a little boring, I really believe they need to give the viewers something that actually makes sense before they lose all of us.  Spend some time at the lake, then maybe they have a problem where they have to leave.  Maybe then they could use their heads again and head for the Florida Keys.  Another beautiful and easily cleared out and defensible place to put down roots for a while.  Get creative from there, but I think that people watching really want things to make sense.  This involves two things:  First, get rid of Negan asap, and get these poor fools on a lake full of fish, or the ocean.  A completely unlimited source of food.  Give the whole "humanity is the big problem" thing a season off.  The viewers need a break.  Any more endless back roads and the series is done.

Monday, August 15, 2016

Set of ten NCIS portraits

Three so far, another three next weekend.




Monday, April 4, 2016

Who Does Negan Kill On The Walking Dead?

Who cares any more?  Seriously, this could have been a masterful season which built to a roaring crescendo, but instead the producers saw fit to let the end fizzle away in the name of the age old "cliffhanger."  I agree that the concept of the "cliffhanger" is many times necessary to the telling of a good story, but let's remember that this entire season has been pretty much one big, long cliffhanger.  If you push a cliffhanger too far, you risk losing the audience to impatience and apathy.  The solid foundation upon which a good cliffhanger is constructed is the genuine concern of the viewer for the subjects.  If you push the viewer's patience too far you lose them.  This is the mistake the producers made in this situation, in my opinion.

We spent 16 episodes in anticipation of the appearance of Negan, and even those who haven't read the graphic novels knew what was coming at the end of the season.  The viewers should have been given an epic climax to the season, allowed to have the off season to contemplate, to grieve, to mourn.  The threat of Negan and his potential for the future would have been more than enough of a cliffhanger on which to end the season.  We all know that the producers stray from the graphic novels, so nobody really knew what was going to happen EXACTLY.  We all knew that someone had to be sacrificed for Negan and Lucille to fulfill their anticipated threat, but we didn't know who.  This was the cliffhanger we've all dealt with all season long.  This ending was cheap and predictable.  I called it days before, and I was dreading my prediction to come true... but it did.  I really had hoped that the producers would break from the obvious and the predictable, but I was sadly disappointed.  The instant the episode ended I ceased caring which would die.  I'm not going to be one of those who will spend the next five or six months wondering and worrying which will die.  Negan can beat all of them to death for all I care at this point.  I'm calling this "Schrodinger's Negan."  He kills someone for sure, maybe more than one.  However, since the producers have chosen to stretch this out so far and for so long, they've worn thin the patience of much of their fan base.  I'm a pretty average guy, and I know that I represent a decent percentage of the shows demographics.  They pushed it too far with me, and so I know that they pushed it too far with a whole lot of people.  You may not be one of them, and if so, enjoy the next five or six months of nail-biting and anticipation.  As for me, I'll forget this until it comes back and when it does, I'll watch to see who dies and not care at all who it is.




The Walking Dead
Negan season finale
Who did Negan kill?
The Walking Dead spoilers