Mailbag!

Sarah asked a question in the comments of my last post, and I started replying and it got too long for the comments. So I thought I'd just do another post about "The Walking Dead". Here's her question:

Sarah said...

How do you feel about the (rumors? news?) about the Walking Dead writing staff? Seems a bit bizarre to me. But I assume you would have more insight into that than most people...

Here's the article about the decision to get rid of the "The Walking Dead" writing staff.

Frank Darabont ("Shawshank Redemption", "The Green Mile") is the man in charge of this show. He wrote the first 2 episodes. He's a feature guy, so maybe he thinks there's a better way to do things in TV.

They don't have staff writers on BBC shows, but they only have 6 episodes to deal with. "The Walking Dead" is doing 13 next season, and (I guess) will rely on freelancers to be hired per show. The main problem with that plan, it would seem to me, would be continuity.

Hiring a guy off the street to write episode 11, and he doesn't know what the hell is going on with the show, would be a pain in the ass. It seems like it would be better to have a group of writers sit and plan out the entire season together, see each episode as it is put together, and find that same voice/tone, etc.

This is going to be a big problem, especially if you just look at the way this 1st season went. Darabont wrote the first 2 episodes of this season (there were only 6), and they were easily the best written. It fell off after that.

The guy who wrote the comic the show is based on is an Executive Producer and would stay and (I assume) write some of the episodes. Well, that sounds good, except for one tiny detail:

He wrote the shittiest episode of the season by far! He's the guy who did the infamous "abuela" episode that seemed like a first draft. So that's not a good sign.

I think it's an interesting model if you only have to do 6, but gets problematic when there is more. It's kinda cool to be able to bring in superstars to write each episode. But when you're dealing with a long season, I just think you'd be looking at a completely different show week to week.

Maybe if you had a true maniac like Aaron Sorkin it would work. He's a control freak who needs to have his imprint on every script. You could get a bunch of researchers and writer's assistants to feed him stuff and then he just cranks.

But I think when he was doing that on "The West Wing" he rarely ever got the shows produced on time. Also, he was doing a ton of drugs.

And finally, the obvious thing is: it's kind of a dick move, right? The show has been a success. It got picked up for a 2nd season, and this is how you do the writing staff? Not cool. If it was me, I'd wanna keep the same formula in place.