Gimple Moves Up. Kang Takes Over as Showrunner.

[kidgloves]

http://variety.com/2018/tv/news/walk...-9-1202624753/ Yay. Thoughts? Would have preferred someone with experience running a show though but it's a start.

[MinionZombie]

Interesting! I wonder if they were eyeing up this kind of move for a while, being that Gimple had a toe - even if just the little piggy who ran away home - in the waters of Fear The Walking Dead, IIRC ... so there's a kind of 'branching out' going on there. I hope this will be a good move, and it's certainly cleaner than the previous instances of showrunners getting booted off the show. I was pondering this idea a few weeks ago, and suggested a couple of names who I'd like to see take over as showrunner - and Angela Kang was one of those names. She's certainly put in the time on the show in various roles, so I hope she brings some fresh new life to the show, and perhaps she'll have a slightly different perspective moving forward ... I also hope that she doesn't bring along any of Gimple's bad habits. Gimple has generally been very good for the show, and to be fair has presided over the peak of the show (Seasons 4 and 5), but some bad habits did sneak in (getting too clever, silly use of red herrings, structural problems). I'm re-watching Season 7 at the moment and I'm four episodes deep. I liked the season the first time around anyway, but watching it binge-style makes it plays better ... although, being that the show's first airing is week-to-week on TV, you've got to structure according to that. Some key things I hope Kang fixes with the show: 1) Structure and Time Frame - we've seen a positive movement forward on from the Season 7 issue of too many episodes where it's all about one single location or story, however Season 8A has exhibited it's own problem: the passage of time for the characters on the show versus the passage of time for us viewers. A matter of hours for the characters is a matter of weeks or even months for us, the viewers, and this can result in a frustrating lack of pace at times (even if the individual episodes themselves have a good amount of energy - but you can't just slam in action while persisting with glacial in-world progression of time). So I hope Kang finds a new balance and manages to move in-show time at a pace better suited to real-world week-to-week viewing for the audience. 2) Logic Gaps and Silly Slip Ups - small fixes and paying attention to little details can help improve a scene. 8x01 as an example: all you needed to do was show Negan using his valuable lieutenants as human shields to better justify "why Rick doesn't just shoot him" (as the irritatingly impatient complainers in the audience keep screaming) ... to be fair, they have struggled to properly tell the story of the Saviours and Negan from time to time, and have struggled to justify certain actions. The inner workings of the Sanctuary wasn't quite settled enough in Season 7, but that fantastic episode in Season 8A (in which Negan's lieutenants think Negan is dead and start panicking/in-fighting like it's the power vacuum of a crumbling Iron Curtain dictatorship) pretty much nailed the rest of the questions regarding the Saviours operation. Generally, if someone is trying to kill someone, but you as the writer don't want them to be shot, you need to find a better solution to achieve your goal - a missed opportunity, an inconvenient distraction, a jammed weapon etc. Even though Carl was surrounded by guns pointed at him, he still had a decent chance to kill Negan, but essentially just stopped in his mission. It kind of felt as if the previous episode ended with Carl feeling one way (as if it was a suicide mission) and the next he's had a change of heart. 3) Communication amongst the writers - in Season 7 particularly we saw instances where character actions or decisions or opinions didn't quite match up from episode-to-episode, as if one writer was thinking one thing and another was thinking something else. You need to lock all that down and regain the consistency we once took for granted. Actually, rather than just repeat myself, I put down extensive thoughts on the current state of TWD (both good and bad) here: http://deadshed.blogspot.co.uk/2017/...provement.html ... Anyway, I think this is the right move. AMC needed a big change going forward and Gimple was becoming a distraction and a target for some fans ire (some of it justified, some of it simply moronic Twitter rage from chumps), and the idea of having him as "AMC's Kevin Feige" for zombie stuff makes a fair bit of sense. Despite some of Gimple's weaknesses, which have come to the fore more in the last couple of years, the man has also been responsible for some of the very best and most satisfying episodes of TWD. I'd imagine that being a showrunner can be quite a demanding job and sooner or later you're going to become creatively spent - inserting some new blood into the job, but blood that's been entwined with the show since Season 2, can, surely, only be a good thing. All the best to Angela Kang and here's hoping she fixes the aforementioned issues and injects more of the quality we've been used to in previous seasons.

[shootemindehead]

Kang eh? I wonder how that will go.

[Moon Knight]

Kang knows the characters in and out. I’m not a Gimple hater but this needed to happen. The show needs a refresh and a structure change. I agree with everything MZ stated, Gimple’s bad habits got to the point of laughable. Season 9 is the perfect time for a change too. Honestly, I just want this season to be over already; I’m more excited for FTWD season 4. Season 9 can be a breath of fresh air if the source material is respected on screen.

[MinionZombie]

Let's have a rummage through Kang's episodes of TWD: 2.06 – "Secrets" 2.11 – "Judge, Jury, Executioner" 3.05 – "Say the Word" 3.11 – "I Ain't a Judas" 4.02 – "Infected" 4.12 – "Still" 4.16 – "A" (co-written with Scott M. Gimple) 5.03 – "Four Walls and a Roof" (co-written with Corey Reed) 5.08 – "Coda" 5.15 – "Try" 6.03 – "Thank You" 6.10 – "The Next World" (co-written with Corey Reed) 6.13 – "The Same Boat" 7.03 – "The Cell" 7.07 – "Sing Me a Song" (co-written with Corey Reed) 7.09 – "Rock in the Road" 8.05 – "The Big Scary U" (co-written with Scott M. Gimple and David Leslie Johnson) 2x11 ... was one of the finest episodes of Season 2 (the one where Dale dies and the gang wrestle with the moral quandry of what to do with the nefarious young man who Rick rescued from impalement on a fence post). 4x12 ... to be honest, while there's parts of it I like, this is one of the 'not so good' episodes of the show. It didn't really have enough story, and while the golf club setting was interesting with backstory written all over the set design, it felt a bit like wandering in circles to play for time. Like I say, parts of it are good, but it felt like too little content stretched over too much running time. 5x03 ... the one where Team Rick slaughter the remaining Termites in the church. Again, another stand-out episode. Brutal as all get-out, too. 6x03 ... again, a great episode. Sure, it has the controversial beginning of the Glenn/Dumpster situation, but that was a tip top episode. 6x10 ... the Rick/Daryl episode where they encounter Jesus for the first time. It's a hell of a lot of fun, that episode, and again it's one of my favourites. 6x13 ... the one where Maggie and Carol are kidnapped by Saviours and hang out in that meat packing plant. Again, another fantastic episode - and a true "bottle" episode at that (being that it almost entirely takes place inside one location) - and it digs down deep into various female survivors in the ZA. The Maggie/Carol stuff was superb. 7x03 ... the one where Daryl is in solitary confinement on 'Easy Street' at the Sanctuary. This episode is generally quite strong. I think it suffered a smidge because of the general issues that Season 7 endured, but despite a little flagging momentum somewhere in the middle portion, it's a really good Daryl/Dwight episode. 7x07 ... the Negan/Carl episode. Loads of good stuff incorporated from the comics here. Again, the general pacing issues of Season 7 ended up touching most instalments of the season, but this is a pretty sweet episode. However - one major annoyance - Carl not taking his chance to shoot Negan. A simple fix would have solved the glaring issue: have the box of guns (from which he selects an assault rifle) contain weapons that appear dirty. Carl shoots the first couple, Saviours rush in, Negan appears, Carl immediately pulls the trigger BUT the weapon jams. A Saviour goes to shoot Carl, Negan screams "NO!", Carl again tries to shoot Negan when he gets a bit cocky, but again the gun jams. A Saviour gets itchy on the trigger, maybe even fires a near-miss shot, Negan clonks the rogue element on the head, pulls a gun on Carl and has his exchange with him and escorts him off the truck. Simples. Other than that it's a good episode ... well, it maybe didn't need to be an hour long (indeed, Season 7 got a bit flabby with the running times on occasion, with longer episodes being more the norm - regardless of true necessity, which over-stretched certain episodes, like 7x04). 8x05 ... the one where the Sanctuary begins to implode from a power vacuum. My favourite episode of Season 8 thus far and one of the all-time greats, if you ask me. Delves into numerous characters, gives a bunch of shading to 'villains', and is generally pretty damn rad. That's just commenting on some of them. There's a couple of less good episodes on there, but she's been involved in a whole bunch of excellent episodes, so I'm chuffed with her promotion to showrunner. The very best of luck to her. Despite my still utterly split opinion on the major twist/departure of 8x08, Kang's placement for Season 9 gives me a good feeling. - - - Updated - - - Kang knows the characters in and out. I’m not a Gimple hater but this needed to happen. The show needs a refresh and a structure change. I agree with everything MZ stated, Gimple’s bad habits got to the point of laughable. Season 9 is the perfect time for a change too. Honestly, I just want this season to be over already; I’m more excited for FTWD season 4. Season 9 can be a breath of fresh air if the source material is respected on screen. Really? FTWD? Well ... I'm hoping that show is gonna have a big shake up, because it was only doing the minimum to keep me watching (and part of that was just me hoping it'd get better). I sometimes wonder if it would have been better if FTWD was allowed to come after TWD itself was done and dusted, rather than at the same time. It kind of oversaturates the 'AMC zombies' arena, you know? As for the source material. Going forward I suppose it's a case of taking what's good and workable and ignoring what's a bit iffy and kind of out-of-step with the comic's early run. An adjacent example of this on the show would be the Heapsters ... they suck, there's no two ways about it ... they feel too 'Beyond Thunderdome' and don't feel enough 'TWD', if that makes sense? Let me say it like this: would the Heapsters make sense in Season 1? No ... absolutely not. I think that would be a good barometer for going forward with TWD's writing: "would this make sense in the world presented in Season One?" - if the answer is no, ditch it, if the answer is yes, it's a reasonable extension considering the passage of time in the ZA, then have a crack at it. To be honest, the comic has seen better days. There's good stuff in there, but ... well ... The Whisperers are kinda ... hmmm. They feel a bit too 'out there' generally (yes, I know this is a story which featured a tiger ... but, amazingly, they managed to ground that in the character and story), so I am kind of nervous how they move forward. There are, though, various other elements I'm excited to see transported over to the show. I definitely feel better with fresh blood in the showrunner's chair rather than entering that period of the story with Gimple still at the helm. As you say, while Gimple has done a lot of good for the show, in the last couple of years he's unfortunately allowed bad habits or ideas to detract from his good work. Oh yeah - cast numbers - we need to shrink those down. Get shot of the Heapsters, and get rid of most of Oceanside as well (they've barely been in the show as it is anyway), just keep a couple of good ones from Oceanside (e.g. the nice young lady who befriends Tara), but lose the rest. As for the other communities, I think it's wise to 'promote' people at the top. They've managed to do that with the Saviours via the likes of Negan's lieutenants (Simon, chief among them), or with Gerry at the Kingdom, or Gregory at the Hilltop. It'd be a good idea, too, when they know they're going to bump off a supporting player, to insert a new supporting player several episodes prior to a known-supporter's demise so that you can have someone recognisable to 'fill the slot' realistically. Naturally, you're never going to be able to get to know all these background characters like you would in real life, it's just balancing it the right way to represent the idea of Team Rick (or whoever else) knowing all these people.

[Moon Knight]

MZ- Yes, I’m currently more excited for FTWD to return over the final back half of season 8. I said it from the beginning, they should of just had finished All Out War in the first 8 episodes. They stretched out 2 days in the first 8. Considering we all pretty much know how this is going to end now I just can’t get excited. FTWD season 4 has me intrigued. New characters. The new additions are pretty good. A time jump. New scenery in Texas. Morgan. My favorites back and not knowing where everyone is. New show runners. The new images look great. Really got that old school Walking Dead vibe. I’m predicting a huge time skip. They are trying to fool us with Morgan’s attire but it’s looking more and more this takes place after season 8. Look, I’m not saying FTWD is the best, just listing the reasons why I’m really looking forward to season 4. One thing I will give FTWD is they really take chances and the episodes rarely feel the same. The cold opens are always fantastic and the music is highly underrated. They also didn’t turn the gore down like the original show did. Trust, a good amount of choices and material pissed me off with the writing, but I’m willing to give the new team a shot. The new characters actually look dirty! That’s a good start.

[kidgloves]

The best thing this show could do now is go a completely different way to the comics. Get back to being a zombie survival show. Why use the comics as a tv "bible"? Why? The tv viewership vastly outweighs the comic one. Write your own story. My fantasy unlimited funds solution would be to befriend Darabont, give him all the money and freedom he needed and go back to the beginning of season 2.

[MinionZombie]

MZ- Yes, I’m currently more excited for FTWD to return over the final back half of season 8. I said it from the beginning, they should of just had finished All Out War in the first 8 episodes. They stretched out 2 days in the first 8. Considering we all pretty much know how this is going to end now I just can’t get excited. FTWD season 4 has me intrigued. New characters. The new additions are pretty good. A time jump. New scenery in Texas. Morgan. My favorites back and not knowing where everyone is. New show runners. The new images look great. Really got that old school Walking Dead vibe. I’m predicting a huge time skip. They are trying to fool us with Morgan’s attire but it’s looking more and more this takes place after season 8. Look, I’m not saying FTWD is the best, just listing the reasons why I’m really looking forward to season 4. One thing I will give FTWD is they really take chances and the episodes rarely feel the same. The cold opens are always fantastic and the music is highly underrated. They also didn’t turn the gore down like the original show did. Trust, a good amount of choices and material pissed me off with the writing, but I’m willing to give the new team a shot. The new characters actually look dirty! That’s a good start. I suppose I see the sense in your excite-meter. It is fair to say that, yeah, All Out War should have been wrapped up by now ... it's part of that issue of dragging out too little time in their world versus the viewer's experience of time. Hours for them taking weeks/months for us. It's silly and needs to stop, it'd help shake up the structuring of the storytelling and give more leeway and add more propulsion to the overall story. Hopefully Kang will get that sorted out. I've not been following the developments with S4 of FTWD, but just had a gander now - they're getting some pretty big names in: Althea (Maggie Grace), John (Garret Dillahunt), and Naomi (Jenna Elfman). My main issues with FTWD included - not enough content to fill sixteen fucking episodes. FTWD would really benefit from being no more than ten episodes per season. Even TWD would benefit from dropping down to twelve (two doses of six). Also, they kind of squandered Nick - from regularly covering himself in blood to the point of farce, to making some really bizarre decisions (some of which completely fly in the face of who he is), to doing jack shit to save the good brother in Season 3's climax before spending the remainder pissing and moaning about how the bad brother killed the good brother (as Nick just stood there like a lemon). Alicia, too, is friggin' annoying for the most part, and even Strand was wearing thin. The story, as well, never really revved me up at all. There were bits that I liked, but it was just lacking and ended up re-treading ground that TWD already covered years ago in a better fashion. I kept watching FearTWD in the hope of it getting better and was gonna jack it in at the end of Season 3 ... so the only reason I'm gonna give Season 4 a try is because of the change-ups being made ... we'll see ... but Fear will always be inferior to TWD in my view. The spin-off should have waited until after TWD was wrapped up, and it should have explored different territory (e.g. government bunkers etc). We're up to our back teeth with bedraggled civilians already. Anyway, back to TWD ... another thing Kang can do to improve TWD - cut out people acting selfishly or as rogue elements. Team Rick is supposed to be a team. Season 7 is riddled with people swanning off on their own with little regard for picking the right moment as a group. Sure, you could have that work for one character, but there's several rogue elements in Season 7 that it just becomes silly. They've made it this far, they should be acting smarter than that by now. So, please, Angela Kang, re-inject some team-smarts into Team Rick.

[Moon Knight]

I want our survivors to act like a team too. Hopefully, after Carl’s death everyone will get on the same page again. Going by Daryl’s dialogue from the Talking Dead preview, it looks like that’s exactly the direction they are going.

[MinionZombie]

I want our survivors to act like a team too. Hopefully, after Carl’s death everyone will get on the same page again. Going by Daryl’s dialogue from the Talking Dead preview, it looks like that’s exactly the direction they are going. A preview of 8B?

[Neil]

Let's have a rummage through Kang's episodes of TWD: 2x11 ... was one of the finest episodes of Season 2 (the one where Dale dies and the gang wrestle with the moral quandry of what to do with the nefarious young man who Rick rescued from impalement on a fence post). 4x12 ... to be honest, while there's parts of it I like, this is one of the 'not so good' episodes of the show. It didn't really have enough story, and while the golf club setting was interesting with backstory written all over the set design, it felt a bit like wandering in circles to play for time. Like I say, parts of it are good, but it felt like too little content stretched over too much running time. 5x03 ... the one where Team Rick slaughter the remaining Termites in the church. Again, another stand-out episode. Brutal as all get-out, too. 6x03 ... again, a great episode. Sure, it has the controversial beginning of the Glenn/Dumpster situation, but that was a tip top episode. 6x10 ... the Rick/Daryl episode where they encounter Jesus for the first time. It's a hell of a lot of fun, that episode, and again it's one of my favourites. 6x13 ... the one where Maggie and Carol are kidnapped by Saviours and hang out in that meat packing plant. Again, another fantastic episode - and a true "bottle" episode at that (being that it almost entirely takes place inside one location) - and it digs down deep into various female survivors in the ZA. The Maggie/Carol stuff was superb. 7x03 ... the one where Daryl is in solitary confinement on 'Easy Street' at the Sanctuary. This episode is generally quite strong. I think it suffered a smidge because of the general issues that Season 7 endured, but despite a little flagging momentum somewhere in the middle portion, it's a really good Daryl/Dwight episode. 7x07 ... the Negan/Carl episode. Loads of good stuff incorporated from the comics here. Again, the general pacing issues of Season 7 ended up touching most instalments of the season, but this is a pretty sweet episode. However - one major annoyance - Carl not taking his chance to shoot Negan. A simple fix would have solved the glaring issue: have the box of guns (from which he selects an assault rifle) contain weapons that appear dirty. Carl shoots the first couple, Saviours rush in, Negan appears, Carl immediately pulls the trigger BUT the weapon jams. A Saviour goes to shoot Carl, Negan screams "NO!", Carl again tries to shoot Negan when he gets a bit cocky, but again the gun jams. A Saviour gets itchy on the trigger, maybe even fires a near-miss shot, Negan clonks the rogue element on the head, pulls a gun on Carl and has his exchange with him and escorts him off the truck. Simples. Other than that it's a good episode ... well, it maybe didn't need to be an hour long (indeed, Season 7 got a bit flabby with the running times on occasion, with longer episodes being more the norm - regardless of true necessity, which over-stretched certain episodes, like 7x04). 8x05 ... the one where the Sanctuary begins to implode from a power vacuum. My favourite episode of Season 8 thus far and one of the all-time greats, if you ask me. Delves into numerous characters, gives a bunch of shading to 'villains', and is generally pretty damn rad. That's just commenting on some of them. There's a couple of less good episodes on there, but she's been involved in a whole bunch of excellent episodes, so I'm chuffed with her promotion to showrunner. The very best of luck to her. Despite my still utterly split opinion on the major twist/departure of 8x08, Kang's placement for Season 9 gives me a good feeling. Nice summary!

[MinionZombie]

Nice summary! Thanks. ... I'm re-watching Season 7 now and I've done 11 episodes so far. It's good to see what works and what doesn't again for clarification. One example - Father Gabriel absconding with all the food and weapons at Alexandria. For viewers you're made to think he's stealing all their shit for some random, unknown reason ... but then a week or so later we got the explanation that, in fact, one of the Heapsters was in their pantry thieving, Gabriel interrupts them, and is then compelled to help them take all the stuff. It's terribly clumsy and, initially, you're left distracted and frustrated because you think that Gabriel has just screwed everyone over for a shitty reason. It would have been far better for only the characters on the show to think that Gabriel had taken all the stuff and run for the hills, but to show us the viewer that there's an unknown assailant in the pantry stealing everything. We could see them beat up Gabriel, threaten him, and then we watch Gabriel being taken hostage with all the stuff. That way the viewer would still have a mystery - who is the assailant, where are they from, what's going to happen to Gabriel? - and it'd be without any frustration that comes with thinking that Gabriel is either being monstrously selfish out of the blue, or making some moronic decision (as was the actual reaction to that scene when it originally aired). Basically, in trying to be clever, the writers simply caused the audience to be aggravated rather than intrigued. A simple alteration would have achieved what they had intended for. However, it's also good to see all the awesome bits of Season 7, as well. For example, in the back half you have all the Richard/Daryl/Carol/Saviours stuff building up and then culminating in 7x13 ("Bury Me Here"), which is one of the all-time best episodes.

[Moon Knight]

A preview of 8B? Yeah, it was in the last episode of Talking Dead. Should be on their YouTube channel.

[MinionZombie]

Yeah, it was in the last episode of Talking Dead. Should be on their YouTube channel. Oh, you mean for episode 8x08? I must have forgotten that bit.

[Moon Knight]

Oh, you mean for episode 8x08? I must have forgotten that bit. No, the clip was for 8x09. You might have seen it if you watched Talking Dead. It was with Dwight, Michonne, Daryl, and Rosita.