The Walking Dead: Why Season 8 Needs to be a Reboot
The Walking Dead's popularity was at an all-time high heading into season 7, but as the season [...]
It's Been Done in The Comics
If fans need any other better indication that the title of this article is valid, they just have to look at the comic book source material for proof.
In The Walking Dead comics, the war with Negan and The Saviors was followed by a two-year time jump in the story. It effectively acts as a soft reboot, allowing readers to be re-introduced to the characters and situations of the story.
We'll avoid SPOILERS on what happened for the sake of both readers and viewers, but let's just say that The Walking Dead TV show is in perfect position to follow the source material's example and then some. A big time gap and truly fresh re-introduction to the show would be invigorating for fans and the showrunners themselves.
Too Many Loops
The biggest criticism of The Walking Dead is that it falls into an exhaustive series of patterns. The characters go from on the run to settling in a seeming safe haven – only to end up back on the run when the haven ultimtely proves unsafe. Characters sink into deep wells of despair/madness from loss, climb out and find hope - only to sink back into despair, due to new loss.
It's fine for a show to have a repetitious pattern - but there's only so many times you can throw the same characters into that pattern and have it be interesting. The amount of times we've seen Rick/Sasha/Maggie/Carl/Carol/etc. spend entire episodes in existential melancholy is extensive, and quickly losing its splendor.
Sometimes, patterns need to be broken and new routines established. This is one of those times.
Mass Exodus `
The Walking Dead has had more rotations in its cast than most shows - which is the nature of this zombified beast, when you really think about it. However, the show tends to rotate people in and out one or two at a time; there's always a sense of the core group being maintained, even as members change. But maybe it's time to make the changes a little more drastic.
Handled correctly, The Walking Dead season 8 could have such a big jump that many characters move on. A few core players (Rick, Michonne) would stay behind as a through line for viewers, but on the whole, the majority of the ensemble would be new faces (sorry, Carl). Best of all, it could be established that characters who "moved on" aren't necessarily dead, leaving plenty of room for reappearances down the line.
Break New Talent
The Walking Dead has helped propel quite a few careers, and those careers deserve room to expand and grow. While star Andrew Lincoln looks at home in his Rick Grimes role, actors like Lauren Cohan, Danai Gurira, Norman Reedus and others have begun branching out to other ventures that are gaining their own measures of success.
With the cast having new doors open, they should be be free to walk through them. The Walking Dead is an event TV concept show first and foremost, so there is plenty of room to bring in, develop, and break a whole new crop of talent.
It's Lucrative for AMC... and Fans
On the business side of things: Walking Dead is the franchise that keeps AMC TV going. Out of the network's all-star lineup of shows (Breaking Bad, Mad Men, TWD) it's the only one that's still running, and was completely owned by AMC, generating significant profits.
It's for that reason that you see a spinoff like Fear the Walking Dead; every new show gets the launchpad of a built-in fanbase, new merchandising, and all sorts of profits that funnel back to AMC. If people are unhappy with Fear the Walking Dead, then a soft reboot of the main Walking Dead show achieves much of the same goals.
The fansbase will be there and the advertisers will too; but with new characters and a new storyline, there's new opportunity for new merchandising. For fans, they get to stick with the Walking Dead they know and love, without having to risk their time on a new venture like Fear. Everybody wins.
A New Format
One of the best things a soft reboot (especially a time gap) could do for the show is allow for a new storytelling format to be put in place.
There's been very little non-linear narrative play in either The Walking Dead or Fear the Walking Dead, but maybe it's time to change that. With a time gap, we could actually get a version of the show that jumps back and forth in time to show how the two missing two years shaped the present - or how the new present will lead to an impending future.
It would essentially give the cast member and viewers an entirely new type of show, where we get multiple iterations of each character, and new air of mystery hanging over the story.
