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By Joshua Tyler
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Usually when we discuss why something failed as part of our Why did a series failIt is about a whole film or series that performed or lost the mark. This time, I’m doing something different. Instead of looking at an entire show, I am magnified one specific decision.
It was such a bad decision, so disastrous, that it eliminated not just a TV show score but its whole future. One decision, one second that completely destroyed the most popular series on television.
This is why Glenn’s killing failed.
The popularity of the Dead Walking Dead once in a generation
By the time The walking dead Season 7 arrived in 2016, it was the largest show on cable TV, drawing over 17 million viewers for its season 7 premiere and dominating pop culture. The series was on its way to confirm a place as one of the great TV shows ever.
Is a season 7 opener, The walking dead throw it all off. He killed the show off Glenn Rhee in the first episode of season 7. It was a turning point that the series never improved.
From the outside looking in, that the thing That may not destroy the show makes no sense. The series had killed dozens of primary characters by then. Killed dear characters had come The Walking Dead’s Trademark, and that’s exactly the problem.
By season 7, viewers had already begun to question why they were watching the show. Week after week, The walking dead has delivered endless moments of distress and death. Things never got better, and characters you loved were always eaten.
Viewers started to feel as if they were being abused
Glenn Rhee, played by Steven Yeun, had been with the show since her second episode. He was one of the very few who survived from the original cast.
He was not just a survivor; He was insightful, loyal and inventive. He was the moral compass that had rescued Rick, won the group out of countless jams, and built a credible, warm relationship with Maggie (Lauren Cohan). He was the only steady bright spot in a show built around endless suffering.
And again, The walking dead has already been taking Glenn for granted. In season six, the show wrote and faked the death of Glenn and then toy with the viewers about whether he was alive or not. Maybe that was their way of preaching the audience when they actually killed it, but for fans, it was starting to feel like they were being abused.
Why Kill Glenn drove viewers away
When in the Première season 7, Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) Bludgeoned Glenn to death with a baseball bat in front of the whole group, the loss hit hard. But it was not just the death; That’s how it was done. The chilling approaches of his crushed skull, the “eye pop,” and the long sadness made him feel less like a drama and more like a penalty for watching.
Viewers had suffered plenty of character deaths before, but Glenn’s execution crossed a line. People started questioning why they were still watching this, wondering what was rooted for. Those were not questions The walking dead Want his audience asking because once they did, the answer was nothing.
Walking Dead’s huge score falls after Glenn’s death
Scales immediately. 17 million watched Glenn’s murder. Only 12 million were still watching the next episode. Only 11 million for the third. That decline never ended. It was accelerating. By the final season of the show, it was on average less than two million viewers in each episode.
The walking dead AMC Movie never announced. He was canceled and eventually re -executed into six chapter miniseries that were not, predictable, watching. He hardly manages a million viewers.
Walking Dead viewers needed security
When they killed Glenn, the emotional heart of the show disappeared, replaced by a serious shock value. The show’s production team thought they were being edgy by proving that no one was safe, but viewers already knew that. What their audience needed was to feel safe, and The walking dead He took that from them.
The defenders of the move like to point out that Glenn also died in the comics, but that is irrelevant. By season 7, The walking dead Firmly established that he did not adhere to the canon of comic books.
Beyond that, the material debate of this source loses the importance of how the death was dealt with. They did not kill the only ray of hope on the show; They stomped to the ground and spit on it.
In doing so they eliminated The Walking Dead’s Legacy in the future. What was once a biggest TV show, loved by tens of millions of zealous fans, is no longer talking about it. In an endless age stream binging, where everything is old is new again, The walking dead actually died. He adores what they did for Glenn.
