Is <em>The Walking Dead</em>’s Villain Killing the Show?
The series’ heroes are finally making moves against the tyrannical antagonist Negan, but they may be too late to stop a ratings slide.
A strange thing happened after the gory, divisive, seventh season premiere of last October: For the first time in the show’s wildly successful history, people stopped watching. Despite airing on the cable channel AMC, it had consistently been one of the most popular programs on television in the crucial 18-49 ratings demographic. And yet, its ratings over the course of last year, the producer Gale Anne Hurd admitted to after the negative fan reaction to the premiere, and the much hyped supervillain Negan (Jeffrey Dead Morgan) quickly proved to be a on a show that doesn’t move quickly even at the best of times.
