Walking dead - did this end too low? 0

[grapeape]

On 8/23/2022 at 2:52 PM, zhamlau said:

Its a great looking page. Does seem like a great buy for someone. I used to love the show but like many I tuned out after Rick left.

Me too

🧟‍♀️ 

[comix4fun]

Maybe it's because he's holding the gun in his right hand and his hand only made it 28 issues.......

[Dirtcheap31]

On 8/23/2022 at 4:50 PM, comix4fun said:

Maybe it's because he's holding the gun in his right hand and his hand only made it 28 issues.......

So it’s even more rare then Lol

[comix4fun]

On 8/23/2022 at 7:29 PM, Dirtcheap31 said:

So it’s even more rare then Lol

Or the right hand is a “short term cast member”. Lol 

[zhamlau]

You know, maybe had it been a revolver style that might have sold more. Like more in keeping with the character?

[Garf]

On 8/23/2022 at 3:21 PM, delekkerste said:

It's a fantastic page - I was hoping it would fly under the radar, but, it obviously didn't. Congrats to whoever picked it up. 

Thanks

[eastbayrudy]

On 8/23/2022 at 3:50 PM, grapeape said:

Me too

🧟‍♀️

Same. But overall the writing just got atrocious. The direction they decided to take that show in ran it straight into a dumpster fire. Should have stuck to what made it great to begin with. 

Edited November 14, 2023 by eastbayrudy

[Lucky Baru]

On 8/22/2022 at 8:10 AM, Sideshow Bob said:

The Walking Dead is all about zombies.

Negan, with the customary wielding of Lucille, never fails to stir a considerable measure of interest.

[The Voord]

On 8/22/2022 at 3:17 PM, delekkerste said:

The comic ended in 2019.

I think there has been a lot of Walking Dead fatigue the past several years...many stopped watching the show when the quality declined 4-5 seasons ago (it has arguably rebounded, but, many people never came back), the show's spin-offs added to zombie fatigue, there was just so much supply of the art available at all times, and the comic series ended. 

That said, I believe in the fullness of time, people will eventually miss it and look back on the franchise very fondly. It was, after all, one of the very biggest pop culture phenomenons of the past decade. I own quite a bit of WD art and continue to add pieces here and there. 

My Zombie fatigue was already in place before I actually started watching Walking Dead (I never read the comic-book) as a result of all the endless Zombie movies released on the big screen over the years!  It was my wife and daughter who got me into the show, as I'd bought them all the early seasons on DVD . . . and as a result of them being played in the background got drawn into the show.  

I liked the fact that it was a character-driven series, with the human antagonists frequently more horrific by nature than those walking corpses!

The climax of the Negan/Saviors storyline was always going to be difficult to top (not helped by some of the key cast members moving on to other projects in the seasons that followed).  I stuck with the show, which could often fluctuate in quality,  and thought something like the Whisperers storyline was quite engaging.  Overall, I do think the series will stand the test of time.  The spin-off series Fear the Walking Dead could be a bit hit and miss but overall wasn't too bad

[delekkerste]

On 11/17/2023 at 5:52 AM, The Voord said:

My Zombie fatigue was already in place before I actually started watching Walking Dead (I never read the comic-book) as a result of all the endless Zombie movies released on the big screen over the years!  It was my wife and daughter who got me into the show, as I'd bought them all the early seasons on DVD . . . and as a result of them being played in the background got drawn into the show.  

I liked the fact that it was a character-driven series, with the human antagonists frequently more horrific by nature than those walking corpses!

The climax of the Negan/Saviors storyline was always going to be difficult to top (not helped by some of the key cast members moving on to other projects in the seasons that followed).  I stuck with the show, which could often fluctuate in quality,  and thought something like the Whisperers storyline was quite engaging.  Overall, I do think the series will stand the test of time.  The spin-off series Fear the Walking Dead could be a bit hit and miss but overall wasn't too bad

I quite enjoyed the recent TWD: Dead City (Maggie + Negan in NYC) and Daryl Dixon (in France) spin-off series. The change of scenery did more to freshen things up than anything they were able to do in the regular series the last 4-5 seasons before it ended. 

[John E.]

I was a hardcore WD fan who put up with the low points and thought I was going to be ride and die to the end. Then I couldn’t bring myself to finish the much looking-forward season 9. It felt like I was watching filler 3 or 4 episodes in.

Have I already said this? What I found interesting about the WD cultural phenomenon was that it began just before streaming took off and consumers weren’t cutting their cable cords. As a result there was a perfect storm of captive audience looking for great tv content and then arrived this cinematic quality show. Now let me remind you, early WD was bogged down by some bad writing that made some scenes a chore to get through. 
 

I believe by 2011 I cut my cable cord and went full Netflix and Hulu which were very cheap at the time. I think I got my WD a little bit on Apple iTunes but I mostly binged when the season dropped on Netflix like clockwork in September. I remember in the meantime I watched the first season of FTWD on Hulu, which scratched the itch but wasn’t all that great—or felt necessary—to continue. 
 

To me the show’s high point was seasons 1-3 but the fervor continued well past that as fans were chasing that high and I admit that it was a very exciting time. But by 2018 more or less, it was no longer, as my brother described it, “must see TV.” And this was a guy who scheduled his sundays around the show. And by 2018–and this is important—you had the premiers of Walking Dead: New World (or whatever; the one with the kids) but so many consumers had cut their cable by then that you didn’t have that critical mass anymore. And because of the wars between streaming services and cable if you wanted to keep up with WD you’d had to subscribe to AMC’s service, but why, when WD was no longer must see tv?

I think the death blow for me was the pandemic. Season 9 was delayed, extended and then it was way delayed on a Netflix. By then I didn’t care. Also, the spin-offs got too much to catch up. I just moved on with the rest of the world. 
 

im not sure if I’ll give these new shows a chance. I mean with Maggie and Negan…geez just kill him or hump him already. 
 

I feel like we’ll never have a cultural phenomenon like the TWD in a very long time because streaming and On Demand has disjointed viewership. I think that’s why comic to small screen adaptations haven’t caught on. I’m thinking YTLM and Deadly Class and Sweet Tooth. The Boys is good and apparently Invincible but that feels like insulated AMZ Prime thing (where’s the endless merch?). (I’m also not a Prime subscriber.) Maybe the closest thing to WD phenomenon is Stranger Things?

Anyhow, when I look back fondly at TWD  it may be for the nostalgia of the days before the endless streaming platforms. But then again, streaming creates an on-demand culture and so maybe I won’t even get a chance to miss it. Ever.

[Lucky Baru]

@John E. 

Maybe you've missed the spectacle of Yellowstone unfolding before your eyes?  Yellowstone, with its reruns gracing the CBS screen, drew an audience of 5.49 million, akin to the viewership that accompanied The Walking Dead in its inaugural season.  As the seasons unfolded on the Paragon network, the audience burgeoned steadily. Come the premiere of the fifth Yellowstone season, a staggering 12.1 million pairs of eyes were tuned in.

Edited November 22, 2023 by Lucky Baru

[cstojano]

On 11/22/2023 at 11:16 AM, Lucky Baru said:

@John E. 

Maybe you've missed the spectacle of Yellowstone unfolding before your eyes?  Yellowstone, with its reruns gracing the CBS screen, drew an audience of 5.49 million, akin to the viewership that accompanied The Walking Dead in its inaugural season.  As the seasons unfolded on the Paragon network, the audience burgeoned steadily. Come the premiere of the fifth Yellowstone season, a staggering 12.1 million pairs of eyes were tuned in.

To John's point about fragmenting viewership, I never heard of Yellowstone (the show) before your post. No clue it existed.

TWD should be studied, if not already, for one specific reason. So many people, myself included, tuned out at the same time - when Negan killed two main characters. That was the end of the season as I recall and we just never cared enough to start watching again, and it wasn't like Glen was some massive fan favorite of mine either. I think it was the brutality of the scene, or just exhaustion about the whole thing, and I was one paying per episode on Monday mornings on Amazon (which I never do). At any rate, I will pop in to random threads like this on TWD and its amazing to see how many people say the same thing about when they stopped watching. 

Edited November 22, 2023 by cstojano

[Lucky Baru]

@cstojano

While you express an unfamiliarity of Yellowstone it is and has been the most popular show on TV.  In the current declining TV viewership it is an abnormality and a phenomenon that is reaching massive amounts of people.

As the tapestry of Yellowstone's fourth season gracefully unfolded, its concluding episode resonated with an audience reminiscent of the fervor surrounding the season finale of Game of Thrones in 2016. Yellowstone’s same day viewership was higher than Game of Thrones - (9.3 million vs 8.9 million).  To illustrate the point further the series ending episode of Breaking Bad (2013) drew 10.3 million same day viewers.

While your unfamiliarity of Yellowstone may linger, an intriguing oddity emerges -  in today’s TV medium it has a colossal fan base and its rating rivals shows from times that had fewer options competing for viewership.

 

Edited November 22, 2023 by Lucky Baru

[The Voord]

On 11/17/2023 at 1:35 PM, delekkerste said:

I quite enjoyed the recent TWD: Dead City (Maggie + Negan in NYC) and Daryl Dixon (in France) spin-off series. The change of scenery did more to freshen things up than anything they were able to do in the regular series the last 4-5 seasons before it ended. 

I was aware of the Daryl Dixon spin-off series but somehow missed any promotion for Dead City (thanks for the heads-up, Gene).  I managed to secure DVD copies of both new shows and have spent the past five days watching all episodes.  Looks like, at six episodes apiece, AMT were playing it safe by not committing to full-blown seasons until such time as audience reaction was known.  I thought they were both good 'taster' mini-series and nicely set-up what's to follow, which seems very intriguing.  Good to see WD out of the woods and into the cities!   ;)

Edited November 23, 2023 by The Voord

[cstojano]

On 11/22/2023 at 2:37 PM, Lucky Baru said:

@cstojano

While you express an unfamiliarity of Yellowstone it is and has been the most popular show on TV.  In the current declining TV viewership it is an abnormality and a phenomenon that is reaching massive amounts of people.

As the tapestry of Yellowstone's fourth season gracefully unfolded, its concluding episode resonated with an audience reminiscent of the fervor surrounding the season finale of Game of Thrones in 2016. Yellowstone’s same day viewership was higher than Game of Thrones - (9.3 million vs 8.9 million).  To illustrate the point further the series ending episode of Breaking Bad (2013) drew 10.3 million same day viewers.

While your unfamiliarity of Yellowstone may linger, an intriguing oddity emerges -  in today’s TV medium it has a colossal fan base and its rating rivals shows from times that had fewer options competing for viewership.

 

Even more interesting because westerns are generally considered a dead medium, or at least way off its earlier generational highs. 

Reading the wiki and I can see why i wouldn't give this a second glance. Amazing that a show on politics and corruption has legs given the times we live in. So much for escapism  

Another show I dropped without a second thought was House of Cards. And somehow I just knew that Handmaid's Tale would never resolve

Edited November 23, 2023 by cstojano

[tth2]

On 11/23/2023 at 11:25 AM, cstojano said:

Even more interesting because westerns are generally considered a dead medium, or at least way off its earlier generational highs. 

Yellowstone's not really a western.  More like "Dallas" in Wyoming or Montana or wherever it is.

[John E.]

On 11/22/2023 at 12:16 PM, Lucky Baru said:

@John E. 

Maybe you've missed the spectacle of Yellowstone unfolding before your eyes?  Yellowstone, with its reruns gracing the CBS screen, drew an audience of 5.49 million, akin to the viewership that accompanied The Walking Dead in its inaugural season.  As the seasons unfolded on the Paragon network, the audience burgeoned steadily. Come the premiere of the fifth Yellowstone season, a staggering 12.1 million pairs of eyes were tuned in.

I actually am aware that Yellowstone has grown in viewership since its first season. I am not one of those 12.1M viewers though. About the show I know that Kevin Costner is in it and I know that it’s set in the West. I know that Costner went through a nasty divorce. Otherwise I don’t care to watch it—but this is not a dig on the show; I also enjoyed Ms Marvel and She-Hulk and have watched them complete several times (a lot of that has to do with having a young family) so this is a matter of me having unrefined taste than the quality of Yellowstone.

By season 4, Seinfeld had 20M viewers and Friends had 25M. The series finale of Friends (“The Last One”) in 2004 brought in 52M or more viewers. These are all pre-streaming numbers. 
 

I did not watch Game of Thrones with the rest of America. After season 1, a friend of my wife’s was so surprised that I hadn’t watch it she lent me her dvd set and I watched season one like that, and quite enjoyed it. Season 2 came and went. I bought the S2 set on Blu-ray but found it so boring I never finished it. It wasn’t until just before the delayed final season that I binged all the seasons upon the urgency of a friend saying that the show is “so, so much more” than where I stopped in season 2. Years before, I binged Breaking Bad on Netflix after the series was over. After the bingeing of both, which I enjoyed, I still had that “what was the big deal about the show?” feeling. That’s because I wasn’t part of the larger community and the larger phenomenon stretched over a period of years that is the secret sauce. 
 

In my previous post I wasn’t saying we’ll never have another hit show again. Statistically that’s impossible. I was arguing that it’s going to be harder to create a cultural phenomenon with disjointed viewership. Breaking Bad was a cultural phenomenon. The Shield (which I watched) was a hit show. Game of Thrones was a cultural phenomenon. Entourage was a hit show. Weren’t Walking Dead and Breaking Bad on the same cable channel, AMC?

By cultural phenomenon I mean character recognition, star-making roles, when Barnes and Noble sends you emails the weekend before the premiere or finale to come buy the source material, the 4K boxed set, the calendars, the mugs, the party game, the chess set, the bobble head, the action figures, the licensed shoe horn. 
 

Yellowstone is a hit show. 
 

Word of mouth is very necessary for a hit show or the cultural phenomenon. It’s the one thing media conglomerates can’t buy and Nielsen can’t track. It’s my friend lending the complete season one of GoT or the other friend pressing me to catch up on the series. It’s you, Lucky Baru, talking about Yellowstone here. That counts. 
 

I won’t deny that Yellowstone’s growing viewership since season one is a phenomenon. But I do find it interesting that the show is on TWO cable channels (I had never heard of the Paragon Network and when I googled it, no network by that name exists. Did you mean Paramount?): it plays on “Paragon” and reruns on CBS and is streamed on Paramount Plus. Three platforms to get to 12M viewers. That’s what it takes to get a hit show TODAY. The first time I heard of the show was because I’m a Paramount Plus subscriber. The first time I heard about the show outside of that is because of Costner’s highly publicized divorce. I feel like that life event did more for the publicity of the show than the network ever could. 
 

The pioneers of cultural phenomenon in the age of streaming and disjointed viewership? Stranger Things and Squid Games. But with GS you had the pandemic and an audience who literally couldn’t go anywhere. Let’s throw Ted Lasso in there but I don’t watch it. Just sayin it’s going to be harder to achieve it. I predict that the future of “cultural phenomenon” is going to be created within streaming tribes, not necessarily because it touched the zeitgeist of the nation; however, so much depends on perfect storms gathering too—it’s not just the quality of the show. But that perfect storm is hard to predict, harder yet to concoct. I think all these phenomenal shows describe their success as catching lighting in the bottle. There isn’t less lightning, it’s just the bottle got smaller. 

[Lucky Baru]

@John E.

Be it your inclination or that of others to cast an indifferent gaze upon it, to harbor apathy or dismiss it as mundane—irrefutably, Yellowstone stands as a cultural spectacle. It transcends the confines of a mere television success.

Acknowledging your discerning eye that uncovered the Paramount network typo, permit me to confess that the meticulous scrutiny of forum posts seldom becomes a habit in my routine.

 

 

[tth2]

On 11/23/2023 at 10:48 PM, John E. said:

I actually am aware that Yellowstone has grown in viewership since its first season. I am not one of those 12.1M viewers though. About the show I know that Kevin Costner is in it and I know that it’s set in the West. I know that Costner went through a nasty divorce. Otherwise I don’t care to watch it—but this is not a dig on the show; I also enjoyed Ms Marvel and She-Hulk and have watched them complete several times (a lot of that has to do with having a young family) so this is a matter of me having unrefined taste than the quality of Yellowstone.

By season 4, Seinfeld had 20M viewers and Friends had 25M. The series finale of Friends (“The Last One”) in 2004 brought in 52M or more viewers. These are all pre-streaming numbers. 
 

I did not watch Game of Thrones with the rest of America. After season 1, a friend of my wife’s was so surprised that I hadn’t watch it she lent me her dvd set and I watched season one like that, and quite enjoyed it. Season 2 came and went. I bought the S2 set on Blu-ray but found it so boring I never finished it. It wasn’t until just before the delayed final season that I binged all the seasons upon the urgency of a friend saying that the show is “so, so much more” than where I stopped in season 2. Years before, I binged Breaking Bad on Netflix after the series was over. After the bingeing of both, which I enjoyed, I still had that “what was the big deal about the show?” feeling. That’s because I wasn’t part of the larger community and the larger phenomenon stretched over a period of years that is the secret sauce. 
 

In my previous post I wasn’t saying we’ll never have another hit show again. Statistically that’s impossible. I was arguing that it’s going to be harder to create a cultural phenomenon with disjointed viewership. Breaking Bad was a cultural phenomenon. The Shield (which I watched) was a hit show. Game of Thrones was a cultural phenomenon. Entourage was a hit show. Weren’t Walking Dead and Breaking Bad on the same cable channel, AMC?

By cultural phenomenon I mean character recognition, star-making roles, when Barnes and Noble sends you emails the weekend before the premiere or finale to come buy the source material, the 4K boxed set, the calendars, the mugs, the party game, the chess set, the bobble head, the action figures, the licensed shoe horn. 
 

Yellowstone is a hit show. 
 

Word of mouth is very necessary for a hit show or the cultural phenomenon. It’s the one thing media conglomerates can’t buy and Nielsen can’t track. It’s my friend lending the complete season one of GoT or the other friend pressing me to catch up on the series. It’s you, Lucky Baru, talking about Yellowstone here. That counts. 
 

I won’t deny that Yellowstone’s growing viewership since season one is a phenomenon. But I do find it interesting that the show is on TWO cable channels (I had never heard of the Paragon Network and when I googled it, no network by that name exists. Did you mean Paramount?): it plays on “Paragon” and reruns on CBS and is streamed on Paramount Plus. Three platforms to get to 12M viewers. That’s what it takes to get a hit show TODAY. The first time I heard of the show was because I’m a Paramount Plus subscriber. The first time I heard about the show outside of that is because of Costner’s highly publicized divorce. I feel like that life event did more for the publicity of the show than the network ever could. 
 

The pioneers of cultural phenomenon in the age of streaming and disjointed viewership? Stranger Things and Squid Games. But with GS you had the pandemic and an audience who literally couldn’t go anywhere. Let’s throw Ted Lasso in there but I don’t watch it. Just sayin it’s going to be harder to achieve it. I predict that the future of “cultural phenomenon” is going to be created within streaming tribes, not necessarily because it touched the zeitgeist of the nation; however, so much depends on perfect storms gathering too—it’s not just the quality of the show. But that perfect storm is hard to predict, harder yet to concoct. I think all these phenomenal shows describe their success as catching lighting in the bottle. There isn’t less lightning, it’s just the bottle got smaller. 

Great post!