One thing I dont like,
This show lives or dies on the characterization. It just does, that simple. If you ever stop caring what happens to the characters, game over. That said, freelance writers worry me because TWD is ALSO very continuity-centric, with each episode building on the events of the last. I worry that with less staff and more freelance writers, that continuity and the nuanced development of characterizations COULD suffer. Don't know the future, and certainly HOPING Darabont has something in mind to combat that.
I mean, whoever made the Doctor Who analogies brushed up against a good point. If you look at say, the "Bad Wolf" overarching story arc, and a lot else that was going on in the show at that time, the continuity was tight as a drum and the characters were really consistent. By the time you get to Martha hooking up with the Doctor, and then Sarah Jane/Donna popping in an out again, you get slammed with some REALLY AWFUL characterization, cliched plot devices, unimaginative re-use of previous villains (Who else was SICK TO DEATH of all the Slythein (sp?) (The bloated green aliens who kept wanting to sell Earth and zipped themselves inside Human Suits.) I tangibly winced every time the camera flicked to one of those "villains", because I knew I was about to get assaulted by dialog written on the schoolyard level.
Pardon for meandering there, but what I'm getting at is when you begin mixing in generous proportions of freelancers, you by definition create a greater burden to keep the continuity tight and the feel of the characters "right". After all, different people write, well, DIFFERENTLY. So it can be really jarring if there's this major interpersonal drama/conflict going on between two or more members of the survivor group, and all of a sudden things go off at a ninety-degree angle because the now-active writer has a different take on the present/ongoing scene than the writer who crafted the first portion of the character conflict.
I write a lot of collaborative fiction. One of which thats been going for a LONG TIME now is a Marvel Zombies-based story I've been writing for in conjunction with anywhere from the five people we began with writing for the main character they crafted and primarily write for, down to 3 core people, back up to 4, down to 2, back to 3 people etc. What I've learned from this ongoing experience is that its IMPOSSIBLE to capture the feel of what someone else was doing. You do your best to craft a complimentary and compatible completion to the portion of the plot they began, but there's a noticeable line of demarcation, like where the thread-line is separating one square of cloth on a quilt from the next.
I guess that's pretty much the core of my concern. Now, if Darabont and/or Kirkman want to engage in extensive oversight personally, or hire someone specifically to smooth over such transitions between writers and make the change from one writer to the next writing for the same character as seamless as possible while also ensuring the continuity flows naturally and doesn't skip and stutter like a scratched CD, I have faith they're certainly CAPABLE of managing such a challenge.
It simply remains to be seen if they will give this issue the appropriate amount of vigilance and constant attention required to combat the trend of working with different writers in rapid succession. With a 13-episode run, they really dont have much room to falter for an episode or two each time a major corner is turned in the story.
Will have to wait and see, but I don't think my concern and lack of coverall faith as to how quickly and competently they'll manage this issue is entirely unjustified here. Like everyone else, I'm rooting for TWD like mad! Hell, it's the ONLY show I've been tuning in raptly week after week to watch. Even so far as the only show I feel any genuine attachment to. The rest of the TV lineup is, in view of my tastes, an absolute barren WASTELAND of insipid cookie-cutter dramas...melodramatic and formulaic pseudo-reality TV shows with the most tedious of subject matter as its substance. (Nation's best dog groomer, REALLY?!?!) Or how about Fat Camp TV, aka The Biggest Loser? (Aptly named, because a) Those folks are some of the biggest losers I've seen from even brief channel-surfing glimpses of show, and b) The quality of the show itself).
ALL the other shows I used to watch regularly are gone now, and nothing worthwhile took their place. In place of Stargate: SG-1/Atlantis we get the very ho-hum Stargate: Universe that's more like Lost on a big breaking-down spaceship than its predecessors. House was about the only Medical Drama I liked, but the last 2-3 seasons have been so painfully melodramatic, with such blatant ratings-whoring by constantly throwing future plot credibility under the bus in an attempt at cheap titillation of the fans. The list goes on and on, and on and on. I spend all my time on the computer or scouring old and a few new-ish movies for something to watch when back pain wont allow me to sit at the computer.
All that said, I hope its now self-explanatory that, despite some of the negative analyzing I've done, I AM a huge fan of this TWD show. I want it to succeed, and I want it to run for 10+ seasons. However, I was back in the day also a fan of Vampire: The Masquerade, and got very excited when Kindred: The Embraced first aired. At first it was like a Vampire: The Masquerade fan's dream come true, but within maybe half a dozen episodes it became obvious that what continuity did exist was painfully and poorly maintained, and the characters ended up as two-dimensional caricatures. No amount of fanboyishness could preserve my love for the show, despite my conceptual love affair with the roleplaying game and novel/novella world-setting it was based on and embodied by.
I don't want TWD to become another Kindred: The Embraced epic fail, that's all.
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Originally Posted by Wyldwraith
Exactly, Bass. I did a search for fanboy + panic, but couldn't get anything worthwhile. 
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