Never before have I seen a series take such a steep decline in terms of writing and content as I have The Walking Dead. What once started off as such a juggernaut, has been dying a slow, painful death for a good four or five seasons now, with Season 10 being the most embarrassing one yet.

Originally airing from October of 2019 to April of 2020, the season dragged on thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic and didn’t pick back up until February of this year (with one single forgettable episode airing in the meantime in October of 2020). But no matter when they aired, the majority of the episodes remained as uninteresting as the last one.

When the season first picked back up, the heroes were still in the midst of conflict with “The Whispers,” the most bland and boring group of villains to fill the small screen since the original Scooby-Doo series back in the ’60s (and equally as laughable). Samantha Morton and Ryan Hurst lead said group of “bad guys” as Alpha and Beta, respectively, and were (thankfully) both killed off early on with little to no shock effect at all.

The show has become so overly muddled with various new characters (Princess and the “masked soldiers” come to mind) and settings, it’s become nearly impossible to keep track of (or even care to) what’s even going on. The only saving grace in recent memory were two individual episodes; one involving Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) and Aaron (Ross Marquand) encountering an unstable drifter (played brilliantly by Robert Patrick) while on a supply run, and Negan’s (Jeffery Dean Morgan) backstory episode last night (though unfortunately, even the latter took away some of the mystic of the character by making him into a former gym teacher. Yes, a GYM TEACHER!).

I remember watching the show the night it originally premiered (October 31, 2010) after taking my son out for a night of trick-or-treating. I instantly related with characters like Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), and fell in love with the dramatic tension of the pace and writing. Since then, the show has become unrecognizable, and downright atrocious, with cast members coming and going (Danai Gurira, a.k.a. “Michonne,” is the latest to leave after this season). But thankfully, the show will finally be put out of it’s own misery after season eleven (with of course even more spin-offs than the ones already going, which both have more or less surpassed their source material at this point). If you’ve never watched an episode of The Walking Dead in your life, do yourself a favor, and do not start with a later season like this. Hell, even if you do start from the beginning, don’t waste your time, and just skip the last few pitiful seasons altogether (I certainly wish I had).

Rating: 1.5/5 Stars