Yeah at this point I think they really need to consider season 10 being the final season for this particular show. As much as people seem to be enjoying the show more now the ratings are still dropping. That added to the fact that it seems the actors are getting tired of it themselves makes it pretty illogical to try to keep it going to season 13, 14, or 15. How much longer is Tara's actress going to want to be on as she has been doing this since season 4. The way things are going in two seasons virtually all the characters from what we know as the Walking Dead will be gone and the ratings will be in the 2's or 3's. Still decent ratings for a cable show but was also a show that was getting 15m viewers an episode back in season 5.

Better to just end it on a semi high note than to run it into the ground to the point where no one is watching anymore and all the characters that people associate with TWD are gone.

 

If you'll allow me to play "a glass half-full kinda guy" for a minute...

A show in it's 9th season...let me stress that...9th season...a show losing major characters, and coming off of a couple of less-than-satisfying seasons...a show that doesn't get the wider-audience benefit of being on a major network still pulls in 4.54 million viewers (and this, during it's "rebuild" season) well, I'm having a hard time looking at that number and saying this is a bad thing.

 

“I’ve quit watching TWD....but I still know what happens in every episode”. There fixed that for ya.

 

By television show standards, it's beginning to get long in the tooth. MASH and Cheers lasted 11 seasons. Seinfeld, 9. Friends made it 10.
Factor in that they've killed off Rick, Carl, Maggie, Glen, Abe, and on and on........ and it's taking a toll. As Rapscallion noted - and I don't think it can be overstated - the show for 8.5yrs was about Rick fighting to survive in this world for his family - that was THE show. A bit of a vacuum has been created when that whole family is now gone.
And don't get me started on the never-freaking-ending Negan arc!!! Oh. My. Gosh. That has just gotten beyond old, and I think a lot of folks have become bored with it.

I'm still watching, even though a lot of the excitement has left it for me. The Whisperers arc looks promising, so long as they don't belabor that.

 

You keep saying that about Carl but he wasn't killed in the war. He was killed DURING the war sure, but he wasn't a casualty of it directly.

 

I agree with all of this, especially the Carl point. This was, in my opinion, pulling the thread that unravelled the tapestry. And no way to "un-do" it.

I will maintain that there is is a major difference between a season 9 slide in ratings (which I consider a natural thing) and a collapse of the series. We are far, far from that. Is the show past it's "glory days"? Of course it is! To think otherwise for a series 9 years old is ridiculous. But has it now become reinvigorated? Hell, yeah. Thing is, now they have to scratch and claw their way out of the pit they found themselves in. They have to "prove it", with each and every episode, and they haven't disappointed me yet.

 

One last thing to mull over before I take off my "serious" hat and put the "silly" one back on:

Excellent positive word-of-mouth right now is the reason this stat is 4.54 million and not 1.23 or less. Have faith, guys!

I'm going back to my silliness now (jumps off of soapbox)...

 

Absolutely. The vast majority of cable shows would kill to have 4.5 to 5.5 million viewers, even during their golden years. They need to just put more of this creative effort with good word of mouth into the main show, rather than collapse it and start a new spin off, which probably WOULD be at 1.23 million quickly. Right now, from both a creative and financial standpoint, they are doing fine in the grand scheme of things, this far into a series.

 

We'll see what the ratings look like during the halfway point of season 10. If the numbers are down into the 2's and 3's season 10 very well maybe Kang's last.

There comes a point where there generally just no longer is an appetite for a show period and there is simply nothing they can do to turn it around. TWD may have reached that point already.

 

While true but say if episode 10 of season 10 gets say 3.5 million viewers that means that Kang would have done virtually nothing to stop the ratings bleed of the series. And it probably wouldn't be all her fault but more indicative of overall interest in the series in general.

It's fine for TWD to be a never ending story in comic form because that is what that medium is used to. But it's not such a good idea to have a never ending story in live action as that medium tends not to have the same amount of attention span or patience. Plus you get into a place where TWD is now where the actors are now wanting to leave to do other things.

 

I'm taking the numbers for Sunday's episode with a grain of salt.

Oscars.

Can we get these f'n award shows away from Sunday please.

 

this is what happens when you have killed off every character from the beginning except Daryl and Carol. Plus all the suspense of the show has completely disappeared, IMO

 

To WD's credit, they could run a repeat during the Oscars like everybody else is doing, but they have a bit of respect for the fans, and faith in what they're doing unlike all the other _______ (insert your own words here).

Good on them!