The common popular thought is that we live in an era riddled with nothing but remakes and sequels. This thought process may not be wrong but it isn’t the only truth about the modern TV and film industries. We also live in the generation of adaptations. Now, adaptations are nothing new, with novels being the proving ground for films dating back to the very advent of the motion picture. The difference faced by modern creators is that a lot of adaptations now come with a massive following. These creators aren’t simply adapting a story, they are adapting something that comes with an in-built audience. The bonus they get from launching such a show or movie is a guaranteed initial audience. However, in almost every case, it is also a double edged sword.

Never has this been so evident as with the recent cliffhanger of The Walking Dead’s season 6.

The oddest thing about this particular Walking Dead finale comes from the fact that it was the closest attempt to mirror the comic book that the show has probably ever seen. For over five seasons fans followed adventures that seemed more like an alternate-reality version of the characters they read about on a monthly basis. Characters that last for years in the book died relatively quickly on television (Dale), while some that were barely footnotes in the book (Carol) have grown to be major characters on the show. Surprisingly, during the second half of season six, the writers seemed to change their tune.

Ever so slowly the show started to move closer and closer to the story in the book. Why this happened is known to anyone who has read The Walking Dead. Season six was on a collision course with issue one-hundred of the book; an issue that happens to contain one of the most iconic, albeit horrific, moments in the book’s history. Unfortunately, as the show moved closer to the book, the writers opened themselves up to direct comparison, and that’s what ultimately back-fired on them.

It’s impossible to tell now, but there is certainly reason to believe there would be less outrage from book fans if the final scene didn’t so closely resemble the original. If the writers had stuck to the plan they have been following since season one, fans might have been happier to acknowledge the reality that the show doesn’t mirror the comic book directly. With that direction there might have come a leniency to accept a cliffhanger that is essentially a pulled punch, one designed to allow producers to re-sign some of the bigger actors to new contracts, with an axe in the shape of a baseball bat hanging over the actors’ heads. Business over creativity in the worst way possible.

The real problem the writers have faced here is expectation. Negative fan response has come because they feel they have been robbed of an iconic moment: the first time that popular villain Negan, expertly cast with Jeffrey Dean Morgan, enters the fray. In the end, what it came down to was the fact that the writers, who had made great success out of orbiting the source material without risking mass ire for their treatment of it, finally succumbed to the temptation of lifting a moment directly from the book. They may have been better served avoiding it entirely. It’s a true shame because they came so close to nailing it that they would have carried a lot of fan-backing into season seven. Now they will be forced to rebuild trust. I would never demand a writers room bow to the whim of their audience but sometimes moments are too big to be tampered with. In the case of The Walking Dead, next time, they might just have to focus less on what they think the fans need, and more on what the fans expect.

6.5/10

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