Hrm, that's not how I feel about the show. I feel that it could be an amazing look at the human experience when pushed to the extreme, with zombies... but instead is a melodramatic soap opera, with zombies. The difference is dramatic shows have characters acting out of greed, lust, shame, etc. You know, real human emotions. Melodramatic shows have characters acting on things like ignorance and insanity. Why? Because it's easier. It doesn't need explained. It places the focus on what's happening, not why.
The show started out great. It was a constant question of 'why is this happening' and the answers were satisfying and exposing truths of the human experience (the essence of drama, and there was even much more genuine comedy in the early episodes because the truth of the human experience is often funny, even when it's horrifying). The answers we got made sense. And the action led to reactions that made sense. And the reactions led to action, that had consequences.
You know those episodes of Star Trek where they were all in a dream so nothing actually happened? The self-contained episodes? That's what this show has become. The reality may be that in such a situation it just becomes an endless cycle of mundane survival where nothing over-arching really happens; basically they looked for a safe place to settle, and found the prison, the end. It's a show, though, so the writers know something has to keep happening. Instead of creating new motivations, they've just created new action. So, it becomes a pattern of relatively irrelevant action and thus reactions that seem over the top, and in an endless cycle. Someone we don't care about dies. Someone we don't care about threatens someone we do care about. That someone we care about is at risk of dying.... but never does. Occasionally they do kill off someone we were supposed to care about (but probably didn't because the drama became melodrama and shallow). Rinse, repeat.
It's hack writing, that yes can lead to great mainstream success because most viewers are idiots or don't give a shit as long as there are zombies. But meanwhile, they don't even do all the tropes very well, and aren't even very good at delivering a consistent delivery. Soap operas are good at being bad, and aren't even fun to watch and make fun of because they're delivering exactly what they're trying to deliver. The Walking Dead TRIES to be good. The writers TRY to be good. The producers talk like they're TRYING to make a great show. The constant battle between what they want the show to be and what it actually is has become the only real drama remaining.
This is evident by the fact that slowly, even the least discerning viewer seems to start asking more questions about the writing and producing and design decisions and shit outside the show. Even the vapid girls at my work who used to rave about The Walking Dead are starting to suspect something is amiss. They're asking a lot of confused 'why did that happen like that' sort of questions that can't be answered in any way other than examining the quality of the writers and producers.
It's almost become a show about a show, and at this point that's what makes it so spectacular to watch.
