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“The Walking Dead” Must Combat Declining Ratings By Breaking the Obvious Pattern

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Herein lies the problem with only making certain episodes into event television.

As we told you just yesterday, AMC’s “The Walking Dead” is rapidly losing viewers in its current seventh season. Mind you, the show has still been holding steady at around 11 million viewers per episode these last several weeks – at the time of writing this post, we don’t yet have the numbers for this past Sunday night’s Tara-centric episode – but it’s nothing if not a tad bit alarming that the seventh season has seen the sharpest episode-to-episode decline in the show’s history. Furthermore, the current episode ratings are the lowest the hit zombie series has posted since Season 3 back in 2013.

Of course, there are likely a multitude of reasons why the ratings are dropping – some have suggested that the brutal season premiere was just too much, while others feel that Negan hasn’t lived up to the hype as a villain – and if you asked individual viewers, you’d probably get different answers to explain why they’ve decided to tune out. This season’s fractured storytelling certainly isn’t doing much to help matters, nor are the tonal issues, and we’ve got a strong feeling that an extended episode about Tara this past Sunday night wasn’t exactly what viewers needed to pull them back in. Needless to say, the series hasn’t quite been able to capitalize on the game-changing Season 7 premiere in a very compelling way.

But in order to really understand what’s going on here, I think we need to realize that the show’s recent ratings troubles aren’t exactly anything new. Granted, we’ve never seen this steady of a decline in viewership before, but looking at the episode-by-episode ratings chart found over on Wikipedia, it’s clear that there’s a definite pattern to the show’s ratings. And it’s a pattern that the show, by the very nature of the way it conducts business, has entirely brought upon itself.

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As you can see in the ratings graph above, “The Walking Dead” tends to post its best ratings at the beginning, middle, and end of each season, and its worst whenever a season isn’t either coming or going. Naturally, TV shows are more must-see when they’re airing premieres and finales, but with “The Walking Dead” in particular, it seems that an increasing number of viewers are only really interested in the comings and goings. Why? Because “The Walking Dead” has consistently told them that those are the only episodes where big, must-see things are actually going to happen.

And viewers have started to catch on.

Whenever a season is beginning, ending, or being split down the middle with a mid-season finale, “The Walking Dead” tends to pull out the big guns and really get people talking, but the problem with this approach is that the episodes in-between tend to feel like filler – and that’s perhaps never been more true than it is right now, in Season 7. Mind you, longtime viewers of the show understand that those bottle episodes are hugely important in the grand scheme of things, building to big moments in a way that makes those big moments actually mean something – the Tara episode, for example, set up a new community of potential allies in the battle against Negan and made us care more about Tara, which will count when her life is on the line… so don’t go telling me it was an episode of pointless drivel – but it’s not hard to see why large swaths of viewers have decided to only tune in for those big events. When you don’t NEED to watch every week, what’s compelling you to watch every week?

So what’s the answer here? Does every single episode of each 16-episode season need to be shocking, game-changing, and full of action and excitement? No, and that’s really not how television works anyway – nor is that kind of storytelling what “The Walking Dead” has ever been about. It’s inherent to TV shows that there’s going to be episodes that inspire water cooler talk and others that exist as filler to pad out the story, but maybe what “The Walking Dead” needs to do is start showing us that big things can and will happen at random, rather than at the most obvious and expected times. Every episode doesn’t need to be a game-changer, but if those big episodes are sprinkled throughout each season rather than merely used as book-ends, viewers will likely start to realize that they need to tune in every week. And when you NEED to tune in, you tune in.

Take FOX’s “The Exorcist,” for example. We’ve been raving about the series for months here on Bloody Disgusting, and one of the big reasons we love the show so much is because it’s constantly shocking and surprising us with big events that we never possibly could’ve seen coming. Without spoiling it for anyone who’s not caught up, “The Exorcist” has now completely changed the game on at least two noteworthy occasions, first in Episode 5 and then in Episode 8. The twist in Episode 5 was a season finale moment if I’ve ever seen one, but by rocking our socks with it in a random episode midway through the season, FOX essentially told us that anything can happen at any time. And they delivered on that promise in Episode 8, bringing to the table another episode that felt like a season finale.

If regular episodes feel like finales, how crazy are the finales going to be?!

Mind you, “The Walking Dead” doesn’t always save big events for finales. Back in Season 6, we were out-of-nowhere teased with the death of Glenn in the third episode, and though it ended up being a fairly devious cliffhanger that didn’t at all play out the way it initially appeared to, it totally worked. The ratings spiked from Episode 3 to Episode 4, and Season 6 was all around the show’s overall highest-rated season to date. With the Episode 3 shocker, AMC made us feel like anything could happen at any time, and the aforementioned ratings graph shows that the tactic worked like a charm.

The reality is that viewers, tweeters, and website writers bemoan how boring “The Walking Dead” is every single season and yet they keep on coming back for more, so if I was AMC, I wouldn’t be too concerned about the declining ratings and all the negative think pieces. Again, this is a trend that has plagued every season of the show to date, but there’s maybe going to come a point – and we may already be there – where viewers are going to tune out and tune out for good. And the only real way for “The Walking Dead” to win the ship-jumpers back is by making them feel like they NEED to be in front of their TV every Sunday night. We need to feel like missing any given episode is simply not an option. And most importantly, we need to feel like every single episode could be the next big one. The next great one.

We need to be shown that we should always expect the unexpected.

Am I right, Rick?

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Writer in the horror community since 2008. Editor in Chief of Bloody Disgusting. Owns Eli Roth's prop corpse from Piranha 3D. Has four awesome cats. Still plays with toys.

Editorials

‘Leprechaun Returns’ – The Charm of the Franchise’s Legacy Sequel

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leprechaun returns

The erratic Leprechaun franchise is not known for sticking with a single concept for too long. The namesake (originally played by Warwick Davis) has gone to L.A., Las Vegas, space, and the ‘hood (not once but twice). And after an eleven-year holiday since the Davis era ended, the character received a drastic makeover in a now-unmentionable reboot. The critical failure of said film would have implied it was time to pack away the green top hat and shillelagh, and say goodbye to the nefarious imp. Instead, the Leprechaun series tried its luck again.

The general consensus for the Leprechaun films was never positive, and the darker yet blander Leprechaun: Origins certainly did not sway opinions. Just because the 2014 installment took itself seriously did not mean viewers would. After all, creator Mark Jones conceived a gruesome horror-comedy back in the early nineties, and that format is what was expected of any future ventures. So as horror legacy sequels (“legacyquels”) became more common in the 2010s, Leprechaun Returns followed suit while also going back to what made the ‘93 film work. This eighth entry echoed Halloween (2018) by ignoring all the previous sequels as well as being a direct continuation of the original. Even ardent fans can surely understand the decision to wipe the slate clean, so to speak.

Leprechaun Returns “continued the [franchise’s] trend of not being consistent by deciding to be consistent.” The retconning of Steven Kostanski and Suzanne Keilly’s film was met with little to no pushback from the fandom, who had already become accustomed to seeing something new and different with every chapter. Only now the “new and different” was familiar. With the severe route of Origins a mere speck in the rearview mirror, director Kotanski implemented a “back to basics” approach that garnered better reception than Zach Lipovsky’s own undertaking. The one-two punch of preposterous humor and grisly horror was in full force again.

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Pictured: Linden Porco as The Leprechaun in Leprechaun Returns.

With Warwick Davis sitting this film out — his own choice — there was the foremost challenge of finding his replacement. Returns found Davis’ successor in Linden Porco, who admirably filled those blood-stained, buckled shoes. And what would a legacy sequel be without a returning character? Jennifer Aniston obviously did not reprise her final girl role of Tory Redding. So, the film did the next best thing and fetched another of Lubdan’s past victims: Ozzie, the likable oaf played by Mark Holton. Returns also created an extension of Tory’s character by giving her a teenage daughter, Lila (Taylor Spreitler).

It has been twenty-five years since the events of the ‘93 film. The incident is unknown to all but its survivors. Interested in her late mother’s history there in Devil’s Lake, North Dakota, Lila transferred to the local university and pledged a sorority — really the only one on campus — whose few members now reside in Tory Redding’s old home. The farmhouse-turned-sorority-house is still a work in progress; Lila’s fellow Alpha Epsilon sisters were in the midst of renovating the place when a ghost of the past found its way into the present.

The Psycho Goreman and The Void director’s penchant for visceral special effects is noted early on as the Leprechaun tears not only into the modern age, but also through poor Ozzie’s abdomen. The portal from 1993 to 2018 is soaked with blood and guts as the Leprechaun forces his way into the story. Davis’ iconic depiction of the wee antagonist is missed, however, Linden Porco is not simply keeping the seat warm in case his predecessor ever resumes the part. His enthusiastic performance is accentuated by a rotten-looking mug that adds to his innate menace.

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Pictured: Taylor Spreitler, Pepi Sonuga, and Sai Bennett as Lila, Katie and Rose in Leprechaun Returns.

The obligatory fodder is mostly young this time around. Apart from one luckless postman and Ozzie — the premature passing of the latter character removed the chance of caring about anyone in the film — the Leprechaun’s potential prey are all college aged. Lila is this story’s token trauma kid with caregiver baggage; her mother thought “monsters were always trying to get her.” Lila’s habit of mentioning Tory’s mental health problem does not make a good first impression with the resident mean girl and apparent alcoholic of the sorority, Meredith (Emily Reid). Then there are the nicer but no less cursorily written of the Alpha Epsilon gals: eco-conscious and ex-obsessive Katie (Pepi Sonuga), and uptight overachiever Rose (Sai Bennett). Rounding out the main cast are a pair of destined-to-die bros (Oliver Llewellyn Jenkins, Ben McGregor). Lila and her peers range from disposable to plain irritating, so rooting for any one of them is next to impossible. Even so, their overstated personalities make their inevitable fates more satisfying.

Where Returns excels is its death sequences. Unlike Jones’ film, this one is not afraid of killing off members of the main cast. Lila, admittedly, wears too much plot armor, yet with her mother’s spirit looming over her and the whole story — comedian Heather McDonald put her bang-on Aniston impersonation to good use as well as provided a surprisingly emotional moment in the film — her immunity can be overlooked. Still, the other characters’ brutal demises make up for Lila’s imperviousness. The Leprechaun’s killer set-pieces also happen to demonstrate the time period, seeing as he uses solar panels and a drone in several supporting characters’ executions. A premortem selfie and the antagonist’s snarky mention of global warming additionally add to this film’s particular timestamp.

Critics were quick to say Leprechaun Returns did not break new ground. Sure, there is no one jetting off to space, or the wacky notion of Lubdan becoming a record producer. This reset, however, is still quite charming and entertaining despite its lack of risk-taking. And with yet another reboot in the works, who knows where the most wicked Leprechaun ever to exist will end up next.


Horror contemplates in great detail how young people handle inordinate situations and all of life’s unexpected challenges. While the genre forces characters of every age to face their fears, it is especially interested in how youths might fare in life-or-death scenarios.

The column Young Blood is dedicated to horror stories for and about teenagers, as well as other young folks on the brink of terror.

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Pictured: Linden Porco as The Leprechaun in Leprechaun Returns.

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