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The Walking Dead Thread * US-Pace Spoilers*


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I find it very difficult to argue with any of Astro's points to be honest, I think he's pretty much on the money in terms of his criticism of the quality of the stories being told and the constant disappointing payoffs. Having said that, I still watch every episode

 

Same here (but I cut out the "look forward to" bit). The show really is utter shit, and though they're good actors, they're rarely putting in good performances because the material is so poor. That said, I find Negan a really interesting addition, and JDM has been fantastic as him so far.

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But that's what got people pants in a twist. They teased that someone was going to die, and then made everyone wait another six months to find out who.

I truly never got why this caused people to get pissed off. It's a TV show for fucks sake, and cliffhangers are common on season finales. Yes they made people wait, but in the end finding out at the end of the season or 6 months later is really irrelevant. They still found out who snuffed at the end of the day.

I agree, and it didn't bother me because as you say that's how cliffhangers work. Andrew Lincoln defended it on Twitter a few days later along similar lines basically saying "you do understand how TV works, don't you?".

People haven't got the patience for anything anymore, everything has to have the instant payoff. Just look at when someone debuts in WWE, the next morning you can go online and it's been decided how they're going to win the big one within 3 months and then have no idea what to do with them afterwards.

 

 

TV doesnt really work like that anymore. Good TV at least. The days of cliffhangers at the end of a season is thing of the past or they are used as a shortcut by writers. Cliffhangers for the final episode of a TV is the wrestling equivalent of of cheap heat/pop. Sure, they work, but they're easy peasy to do and are usually used to cover for something lacking in any real substance to begin with.

 

Without going into spoilers for other shows, shows like Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad, two of the biggest most critically acclaimed shows in recent memory havnt needed to do these kinds of cliffhangers to get people to come back. Those shows use different kind of cliffhangers. They will show you a big event, a dramatic moment and the hook then is "I wonder how x will react to y", you're invested in the story/characters enough to want to see the fallout of the big events. 

 

The Walking Dead gave us the wrong kind of cliffhanger, and thats why people were so pissed at the time. The conversation should have been "x got the bat, I wonder how thats going to effect y", or how is Rick and co going to bounce back from this. Not Adam West Batman style "what happened next" after the screen has faded to black in the middle of a big event. Also, it was criminal from their own perspective, because while TWD is usually a poor show, the final episode of last season really knocked it out of the park in the way they built the tension and unease throughout the episode, that should have climaxed with the deaths, but instead they let everyone cool down for 6 months and the tension was all gone. So they had to spend half the episode trying to build it back up again. 

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It's splitting hairs really. Cliffhangers aren't bad, but promoting the final episode with a "guess who dies" and then not answering it is shitty. Promotion aside though, I've no problem with them ending the episode not showing. Breaking Bad definitely used cliffhangers that were along the same lines as this as well.

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I don't ever bother to go out of my way to read much reaction online where it comes to TV shows, so I wasn't even aware that there had even been any kind of backlash against last season's cliffhanger ending. Crying about not finding out who died just reeks of entitlement and I suppose would be typical of the instant gratification generation. Personally, I thought it was pretty nicely done. 

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I don't ever bother to go out of my way to read much reaction online where it comes to TV shows, so I wasn't even aware that there had even been any kind of backlash against last season's cliffhanger ending. Crying about not finding out who died just reeks of entitlement and I suppose would be typical of the instant gratification generation. Personally, I thought it was pretty nicely done. 

I wouldnt say it's got anything to do with instant gratification. I usually prefer slow burner stuff and I hated the end. I'm also someone who has read the comics a couple of times over and had a fair idea of who was getting the bat, so that didnt really bother me either. The ending to last seasons finale was pretty much universally slated, from people of all ages and generations. TV critics, fan forums, sub-reddits, and podcasts, even the ones which would normally be bordering on "blinkered fanboy", seemed to find it hard to defend the ending. Like I said in an earlier post, the episode overall was pretty great, I just fee they blew the climax. It felt like a dusty finish in a big PPV main event, to coin a wrestling term. Or a porn with no money shot. 

 

If you liked it, thats great. But people can not like it for a whole host of genuine reasons that have more to it than simply crying about it, or any sense of entitlement, or instant gratification. 

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I definitely think the last shot of last series should have been Glen taking the first wack of the bat.

People who didn't know Glen was going to die did well to stay spoiler free because i thought it was common knowledge he was going to die. I've known for a few series.

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A great cliffhanger is something like in Breaking Bad when

 

 

Hank found the book

 

 

or some of the many brilliant ones in Lost, like when Michael shot Ana-Lucia and Libby and you were wondering what the fallout would be, or when he was typing at the computer and his chat buddy said "Dad?" Or in Game of Thrones when Bran went out of the window. It's the point at which a story progesses to and sets up the next chapter, leaving you eager to find out where it's going to go, whereas the Walking Dead one was just pausing right in the middle of the story and saying "see you in 6 months!" Unbelievably lazy, and it's literally just making you wait to find out who dies, not "how will the show/characters evolve from this point?"

 

As pointed out by posts above, TWD 'cliffhanger' just deflated everyone and was frustrating "better come back next year to find out!", whereas the ones cited above were real HOLY SHIT, WHAT'S HAPPENING NEXT?! I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE! moments.

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Well, I'd say thats nothing like TWD because you know whats happened, and the cliffhanger is what will be the fallout of whats just happened. Just to be on safe side for an episode of television over 6 years old.

 

Jesse goes round to Gales house and shoots him. The gun is pointed in Gale's face, the trigger reluctantly gets pulled, we hear the gun go off and then it cuts to black. We know Gale has been killed and the cliffhanger is what happens next in the grand scheme of things. If we had faded to black before the firing of the gun, and it was a what happens next (as in literally the next few seconds), then it would be the same thing.

 

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I definitely think the last shot of last series should have been Glen taking the first wack of the bat.

People who didn't know Glen was going to die did well to stay spoiler free because i thought it was common knowledge he was going to die. I've known for a few series.

That sounds like you knew for a fact they were going to do it? Or simply a strong assumption based on the source material?
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