There were rumors of The Walking Dead being canceled due to low ratings, but the series has decided to come to an end on its own terms. Season 11 is set to be the final one, paving the way for several spin-offs that are yet to be announced. Even if the end is on the horizon, the show needs to fix past mistakes to ensure it’s the best season yet.
To do this, certain recurring aspects need to be avoided, which have generally held back the show in various ways where the quality is concerned. For the final season to be a hit, these mistakes have to be fixed and bettered upon.
Filler Episodes
With as many as twenty-four episodes meant to air for Season 11, it’s unlikely this mistake will be fixed. Still, no matter how many cool fights or scary moments might be added, filler episodes are just too much of a drag to keep fans invested.
The series has messed up here time and again, most notably in Season 7, and lost more than half of its viewership in the process. If this happens again in the last one, the main storyline is bound to get lost among all the filler material.
Changing Carol's Characterization
There is no other character who’s seen as much development as Carol has. She’s gone from helpless victim to ruthless survivor through the years, but The Walking Dead has crisscrossed in this aspect a whole lot in the most recent seasons.
This has led to Carol becoming an uneven character, in that fans are never sure if she’s going to be nice to someone or suddenly go on a killing rampage. It’s time to set her in one characterization, meaning if she’s supposed to be ruthless then she should stay that way without any hints otherwise.
Setting Up Doomed Relationships
This trope of The Walking Dead is such that fan will find many memes poking fun at the logic involved. It’s a mistake that’s quite glaring, as episodes are dedicated to setting up romances only to kill the characters off soon enough with no resolution to the arc.
The final season needs to avoid repeating such a practice, especially because romances have lost their importance amongst fans by now. Should characters get together, it needs to be their endgame as killing them would mean wasting time in the last story that’s to be told.
Character Absences That Last Too Long
A good way of recognizing the worst episodes of the series is when fans notice a character who’s been missing for a while coming back. This is because it means that person’s about to die, making the episode nothing but an excuse to hand out a death scene.
This happened with Beatrice in the Season 10 finale, with viewers barely caring about her death. Even the characters who aren’t killed suffer, as their reappearance doesn’t make an impact because viewers have lost interest in them. The Walking Dead might not have noticed this mistake yet, but it’s time to fix it.
Reliance On Shock Value
Around the sixth season, it became a recurring habit of the show to suddenly introduce a big villain. Other times, a major death would occur with no prior set-up, eventually hurting the show negatively. Fans had taken to complaining about how it devalued the experience since shocking moments weren’t surprising anymore.
To its credit, the series has come some way in resolving this mistake, as high impact scenes are given relatively more time to marinate. Still, bringing this aspect back for the eleventh season will make people forget about the progress, so the possibility of any shock value has no need to come up.
Lack Of Heartwarming Moments
There was a time when fans could find many heartwarming and wholesome moments in the series. However, the showrunners have made the mistake of thinking sad moments are the same as heartwarming ones. In recent seasons, genuine and heartfelt scenes have become hard to come by.
It would be a big problem if these aren’t there in Season 11, seeing as the final one deserves to have the most heartwarming scenes. Leaving things on a sad note would be the wrong decision. Even if the ending is sad, the season as a whole should have warm moments.
Cliffhanger Endings
This is another habit of The Walking Dead, to the point where people are still discussing the ninth season finale’s cliffhanger. The tenth season ended in yet another one, although the series keeps indulging in cliffhangers even in normal episodes.
A significant portion of fans have complained about cliffhangers being the reason why they’ve lost interest and it’s entirely valid. The show hasn’t learned from this mistake yet, but it really does need to since fans will riot if the final season ends in a perpetual cliffhanger.
Making Zombies The Side Villains
If fans stack up all the villains and rank them based on their effectiveness, zombies should fare quite high. Unfortunately, the series has taken to presenting them only as minor villains for a long time now, which has devalued the “Walking Dead” aspect of the title.
With just one season to go, this mistake should be overcome by making these monsters the main baddies again. The Whisperers don’t count since those were just people disguised as walkers. Having the zombies once again as the main threat will also return the series to its horror roots.
Distancing Characters Away From Each Other
The ninth season had learned from past mistakes and brought the main cast together for the majority of the time once more. However, the tenth season returned to this problem by separating people for long stretches. So much so, that fans forget the connection they’re supposed to have.
It doesn’t make sense in terms of continuity either, as characters who are close should logically want to be around each other. Yet, these people tend not to think about one another after their particular arc is done. Season 11 should ensure characters are together in order for their bond to come across as strong as the show intends it to.
Focus On Communities
If there’s one mistake that’s led to The Walking Dead’s fall in quality, it might just be this one. The show decided to extend the focus on the battle between survivor communities starting from Season 6, which didn’t go so well since a lot of the side characters from these communities aren’t worth following.
Season 9 had done away with the focus on this aspect, but the tenth season brought this back in the fight against the Whisperers. If the eleventh season wants to be a success, the community-driven arc needs to come to an end.