The Walking Dead has shown itself at its worst in 2023

In recent months, the spin-offs Dead City and Daryl Dixon have taken the series universe into an exciting new era following the end of The Walking Dead, looking at the zombie apocalypse from new perspectives. It’s finally fun to be The Walking Dead fans again. And then there was Fear the Walking Dead.

After 8 years, the very first TWD spin-off was ended. And rarely has it been more frustrating to be a The Walking Dead fan. The big series finale turned into an ordeal and brought me to the shocking realization: I wasted precious life time for 113 episodes.

Fear the Walking Dead once had the potential to be really good

Admitted: Not everything was bad about Fear the Walking Dead. The first three seasons, created under showrunner Dave Erickson, initially provided an exciting look at the beginnings of the zombie apocalypse, which were skipped in the original series due to Rick Grimes’ coma. We joined the Clark family on a post-apocalyptic road trip that took us from chaotic Los Angeles to the sea and finally to the Mexico-US border.

While matriarch Madison Clark (Kim Dickens) and her colleagues descended more and more into moral gray areas and developed into hardened villains, Fear got better from episode to episode and reached its qualitative peak in season 3. After the weak 7th season, The Walking Dead was the spin-off suddenly well on the way to overtaking the parent series. But the home broadcaster AMC seemed to want to prevent that.

From season 4 onwards, the Fear the Walking Dead problems began

After series creator Erickson’s exit, Fear the Walking Dead was led by new showrunners Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg turned into a completely different series. The main character Madison was replaced by crossover character Morgan Jones (Lennie James) and literally lost all color. This is where the problems started.

The decision to simply (supposedly) kill Madison Clark left a bitter aftertaste. Has the Fear series been robbed of its former potential and turned into a repository for discarded The Walking Dead supporting characters? After an average 4th season and a terrible 5th season seemed like Fear the Walking Dead’s fate was sealed for me.

However, as a completist, I am rarely in a position to simply give up on a series I have started. Luckily, because With season 6, Fear the Walking Dead suddenly became an unexpected highlight again. The new anthology format brought out the strengths of all characters, while the plot with Western vibes expanded a condensed and better version of the Negan war and culminated in a monumental cliffhanger that shook the series world to its foundations.

The anticipation for season 7 was great. The fallout from a nuclear disaster opened up countless possibilities for exciting and new stories. The result was sobering. Had the writers suddenly forgotten why fans showered praise on the previous season?

I touched my head in disbelief more than once, when the series threw all realism overboard (of a submarine): Where did all the gas masks and Geiger counters come from? Radioactive radiation was often no worse than a mild cold and only dangerous when the script wanted it that way. Alicia’s (non-fatal) zombie infection following an arm amputation contradicted all established laws of the series universe. And let’s not even get started on Strand’s development into a despotic comic book villain who likes to throw people off buildings.

Will Fear the Walking Dead finally be good again in season 8? No

The 8th and final season once again promised a radical reinvention including a new setting and a huge jump in time of 7 years. Finally, Fear the Walking Dead was no longer a “prequel.” Alexandria and the Commonwealth were suddenly within reach. The temporal location parallel to The Walking Dead finale made me hope for a crossover between the two series, which I had been waiting for for eight seasons. Added to this was the return of the former main character Madison Clark – yes, somehow she survived – and my anticipation was immeasurable.

You can watch the trailer for Fear the Walking Dead Season 8 here:

However, the fact that daughter Alicia was written out of the plot shortly before was bitter. Madison was allowed back on the show, but her entire family was wiped out in the meantime. Everything that once characterized Madison Clark no longer existed. And just like Fear the Walking Dead in recent years, the returning main character also slipped into an identity crisis. Yet I still had Hope that the series could now return to old times. How naive I was!

With Season 9, The Walking Dead proved how a huge leap in time can breathe fresh creative wind into an outdated zombie series. In Fear, however, the dramaturgical device only resulted in drastic character changes and far too many expositional dialogues that had to explain the new status quo.

Despite a few bright spots, such as the absolutely horrific zombie transformation of a child or the unexpectedly early farewell to Morgan, Fear the Walking Dead decided in the final meters to waste all potential.

I wanted a The Walking Dead crossover and instead got a terrible series ending

The series finale suddenly got bogged down in outrageous telenovela twists about family relationships and frustratingly entrenched desires for revenge. Not even favorite villain Troy Otto, who returned from the dead, could save this disaster. The fact that there was suddenly no trace of some characters in Season 8 was additionally frustrating.

At the end of the 113-episode journey, there was only one question in my head: Why did I do this to myself? What was the point of this whole story? As a family story about the Clarks, the series lacked a common thread for long stretches (almost 4 seasons). Of course I shed a few tears when Madison and Alicia meet again at the end of the series. But it’s not a worthy replacement for everything Fear the Walking Dead withheld from us.

Half of the entire series consisted almost entirely of me as a fan to lure with empty promises. Be it the repeatedly hinted return of Madison, the bitter Alicia references in season 8 or the promise of a possible crossover with The Walking Dead.

“Worlds Collide” was the slogan for season 4 at the time. Until the last minute of the series, I waited in vain for the worlds of the original series and the spin-off to really collide. A visit to the ruins of the Sanctuary really doesn’t count as a real “crossover” and brought more frustrating logic errors than nostalgic feelings for returning to a familiar The Walking Dead location.

In the end, Fear the Walking Dead remains a series full of missed opportunities, questionable narrative decisions and more frustration than joy. Luckily, the Fear disaster doesn’t change the fact that I’m still a The Walking Dead fan.