Frank Darabont Leaves The Walking Dead
Yesterday, AMC announced that Frank Darabont was stepping down as showrunner for the hit series The Walking Dead. The show is in the midst of production of its second season, and the announcement has left AMC executives scrambling.
This announcement is just the latest in a series of upheavals for the popular show that has been nominated for several awards, including a Golden Globe nomination for best drama series. The show saw the entire writing staff fired by Darabont after criticisms about plots and dialogue surfaced. Darabont even considered having freelance writers write the second season, but ultimately opted for the traditional writing staff for the show’s second season.
What becomes of the show is anyone’s guess at this point. It seems we are going to find out if the problems of season one were really about the writers as Darabont would lead us to believe, or if the problems were about the overall direction of the show given by its showrunner. The writers were easy scapegoats, and since Darabont wrote and directed the premiere (which was spectacular), you gave him the benefit of the doubt.
In any event, fans are sure to become leery of the second season. Darabont had the pedigree, and the fans trusted him. Now, we are left with people without the pedigree who still have to answer the same question brought up in season one: Is this a good show with zombies, or is it a good zombie show? Many people showed up last season expecting the former, but the absence of Darabont makes me think we might get the latter.
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