The Walking Dead won’t be around forever.
Currently in the midst of its eighth season on the airwaves, AMC’s undead juggernaut has shown signs of fatigue in recent weeks, after February’s mid-season premiere stooped to a new low on the ratings front. The reaction to “The Lost and the Damned” was similarly dire, as its 2.9 rating among that all-important demographic (18-49) really illustrates the gradual decline – both in viewer count and ratings – since season 8’s opener, “Mercy.”
So, is The Walking Dead, ahem, living on borrowed time? We know series creator and all-around comic book maestro, Robert Kirkman, has discussed the show’s inevitable finale in the past, and while appearing on ScreenJunkies News, Kirkman teased what the future may hold for Rick Grimes and the gang.
I do have an endpoint in mind for The Walking Dead, and I think that it’s my responsibility — and the responsibility of all the writers on the TV show — to the audience, because they’ve been on this journey for so long. The Walking Dead isn’t gonna last forever.
It might go on for many, many, many more years, but I think that for anyone that’s been on that journey for that long, they deserve a satisfying end. They deserve to know that the time that they invested in this thing was all working towards something, and was building to some kind of reward, and so I think to not have any kind of end goal in mind and not have a plan would be terrible.
And make no mistake, AMC and Robert Kirkman appear to have an endpoint in mind, but with a ninth season already in the pipeline, The Walking Dead is safe…for now.
There is a plan, I do have an endpoint in mind. It is far away off so don’t worry, but we’re building to that. So each and every piece of the story is designed to get us, hopefully, to a satisfying conclusion. But I am fully prepared for everyone to be disappointed.
Season 8 of The Walking Dead marches on with “The Key” on Sunday, March 18th, and we’ll be bringing you all of the latest developments as the build-up continues.