The Walking Dead absolutely thrilled a whole generation of TV viewers. It gets to do it all again for those watching on streaming and home media, but there is no recreating the sheer hold that this show had over us all for the decade-plus that it was on the air. From that first moment in which Rick Grimes awoke from his coma to that last scene in which he and Michonne returned for the series finale 12 years later, we were hooked.
That being said, to say that the whole TWD journey was smooth-sailing would be a lie. Like all TV shows, there a lot of highs and lows in there. For The Walking Dead, it's not surprising to say that the early seasons were the best. However, it was impressive that it managed to make its glory days last for five - six seasons and then occasionally recreate that success throughout the back half of its run.
It did reach something of a low past the midway point of its run, with many regarding season 8 as the worst season of them all. And, you know what, I'm not even going to try and defend season 8: It had a lot of flaws, the dialogue and pacing were iffy, and well, they killed Carl (which is genuinely the worst thing that the show ever did!). And yet, another season was worse than that.
Season 7 was easily The Walking Dead's worst season
It's widely regarded that season 7 is one of The Walking Dead's weaker seasons (nobody is singing it's praises, that's for sure!) but it's really quite surprising how few consider it the weakest of them all. And that's really surprising to me because, for all intents and purposes, it was the season were everything started going wrong for the iconic series.
The season premiere was obviously that infamous Negan episode in which the villain killed both Glenn and Abraham and while that generated a lot of buzz (perhaps more than the show has ever had), it was also something of a make-or-break moment for TWD. It had to work as the show already squandered fans' good will after the cop-out season 6 finale in which Negan attacked an unknown individual in the reviled cliffhanger. Although the premiere did reveal the identity of that individual, it was also met with criticism for its pacing, the fakeouts, the structure, and the violence. Yes, hard as it may be to believe, but TWD fans did not want to see one of the most beloved characters in the history of the franchise get bludgeoned to death with Lucille.
Glenn deserved better and, effective as Negan's introduction was, it squandered fans' good will once again as the show had already manipulated viewers with a fakeout death for Glenn in the previous season; killing him off after all of that was cruel (and honestly, it reeked of last-minute shock factor).
But, if you did enjoy the episode, you probably would have argued that it set the season off on a violent, gripping note. And on that point, you're right, and you're clearly not alone in feeling that way - as it ended up reeling in 17 million viewers on-the-night - but the show failed to capitalize on any kind of momentum after that. Immediately after that episode, we went back to the standalone episodes that already divided fans, resulting in lack of aftermath and pacing that was, quite frankly, all over the place. Although it was great to meet King Ezekiel in the sophomore installment (and it was honestly a refreshing, uplifting break from the violence of the premiere), fans grew weary of having to wait weeks to see their favorite arcs get resolved (instead of just one week).
Furthermore, the show used the momentum of its premiere to justify longer, 90-minute episodes - particularly the fourth installment, which brought Negan back into the fold after his chilling introduction - but all this resulted in was longer, drawn-out episodes that hindered the already-questionable pacing. That fourth episode, for example, would have been much, much better served by a shorter runtime.
As the season continued, there were more issues that just made it all feel so pointless. The continued focus on Negan, who was now a main character, didn't sit well with audiences. Fans often felt that he was protected by plot armor, which allowed him to repeatedly act cartoonish, deliver endless monologues, and camp it up for his audience - despite the fact that his audience (all of his enemies) could literally take him out at any point in time. Jeffrey Dean Morgan was flawless, but the material unfortunately was not.
Furthermore, if you were one of the fans who weren't particularly loving the hopeless tone set by the season premiere, the Negan-centric episodes didn't serve you well either. Because Negan was this big bad new villain, he had to win every time he was confronted by one of our heroes. Therefore, the heroes - Daryl, Rick, Maggie - had to behave erratically, destructive, perhaps even stupidly in order to let him get the upper hand. And it left the whole thing feeling very hopeless - particularly the episodes set in The Sanctuary which focused solely on Negan and The Saviors.
"Swear", Sasha's demise, and season 7's low points
We've mentioned the standalone character-centric episodes before and, well, as the season went on, they didn't get any better. Perhaps the most obvious example of that is the sixth episode of the season, "Swear", which was focused solely on Tara. That character wasn't even considered a secondary character on the show, so to have a whole hour's worth of screentime devoted to her off the back of Negan-centric episodes - not to mention an episode in which two fan-favorite characters died - was absolutely the wrong choice. Need more proof of that? "Swear" has gone down as one of the worst episodes in TWD history.
The season was just a jumbled mess. The lack of overall focus, the particularly poor character-centric episodes, the problematic pacing, and the lack of action all resulted in a really mediocre blemish on what had been a pretty strong run for The Walking Dead. It took too long to get going after that attention-grabbing opening episode and the decision to take the foot off the gas when it needed to charge in full stream ahead ultimately hindered it.
For the longest time, nothing actually happened and it took far too long for our heroes to actually stand up and do something. That unfortunately allowed it to focus on Negan too much, spend too much time on secondary and tertiary characters, and just waste episode after episode building towards the all-out war that season 8 promised. It also resulted in a pretty lacklustre run of episodes leading up to the finale that wasted Sasha by killing her off in a pretty underwhelming way. Was it great that she got to avenge Abraham's death by taking out some of The Saviors and catching Negan off-guard? Sure. Did she deserve better than that? Absolutely!
Look, season 8 of The Walking Dead isn't objectively good, but its run of episodes are far more interesting and action-packed than whatever season 7 was. Yes, people had already started tuning out, and yes, it took too long to get to its showdown in the finale, but it was at least entertaining to watch Rick, Daryl, and the others unite and actually do something about Negan. There were too many episodes, but those episodes themselves had far more to offer. And, with the exception of killing Carl, it probably wouldn't have been as poorly received had season 7 not set the stage for it.
As a longtime Walking Dead fan who has enjoyed almost everything that the franchise has offered (and continues to offer) over the years, season 7 of the original series was undoubtedly its lowest point across an extremely successful run.