Yeah, this isn't a big deal to me. Besides, the 'freelance writers' model is often employed here in the UK on our shows. Sure, just like anything you'll get good and bad episodes, so hopefully the quality from episode-to-episode would be good ... because, for instance, with something like Torchwood or Doctor Who, some episodes are great, while some episodes are shockingly shit. Hopefully we don't get that with TWD Season 2.
And 13 episodes is entirely normal for a channel like AMC - shows like Dexter run for 12 episodes a season, and here in the UK we get a variety of lengths, but the likes of Doctor Who are usually 12 or 13 episodes with a Christmas Special bunged in at the end of the year.
They say the decision isn't final, so perhaps they'll have one or two 'staff writers' to help keep the continuity between episodes and provide a general 'over all arc' - which is what the head writers of Doctor Who etc do ... so maybe Darabont would fulfill that role, who knows.
Perhaps the people who won't be returning for Season 2 were, in a way, 'temps' or people who were specifically not in it for the long haul. Also, perhaps this proposed new way of writing the show would make it more cinematic, with each episode being written less like a TV series and more like a mini-movie ... albeit with an overall story spanning the season. It wouldn't be like Doctor Who, which has a common theme cropping up from time-to-time, but is for the most part at least, individual episodes. TWD isn't that kind of story, so perhaps we'll see a mixture of the two things.
Whatever though, I'm sure Darabont will be doing what's best for the show. It won't be some silly idea or some spiteful vengence or anything like that, it'll be for the betterment for the show I'm sure.
Regarding dialogue - I've found that, most of the time, the dialogue has been good in the show. It was in the comics that I found the dialogue to be a very mixed bag. It has improved with each new trade paperback I've read (I've done the first four now), but particularly in the first couple of trade paperbacks (issues 1 through 12), some of the dialogue was, frankly, piss poor - bloated with exposition that nobody would really say in real life. That was and is my biggest problem with TWD - the dialogue. Sometimes it's good, but on several occasions I've not been impressed with how some of the dialogue has been handled in the TWD books - as I've said, too much exposition where it doesn't fit, and sometimes generally just too wordy.
However, as I like to end on a positive note, I've seen the dialogue improve over the trade paperbacks that I've so far read, and there have been some genuinely terrific moments (such as in volumes 3 and 4) - so clearly the more Kirkman did, the better his dialogue got, so I'll be expecting to see the dialogue continue to improve and evolve as I continue to read the subsequent volumes.
Dialogue is always a tricky thing though. It's surprisingly hard to translate the words that would actually fall out of your mouth in a given situation, onto the page. What's in your brain, and what come out of your mouth are two different things - and when you're speaking you only get to say things once. When you're writing you can do multiple drafts - and in terms of bloated and ill-fitting exposition, that's an easy trap to fall into. I've fallen into it myself in the past, and still do from time-to-time - but I always force myself to thin the dialogue down and make it subtler in terms of explaining a given situation. Even stuff I've written from a couple of years ago I now look back on and just now think "no, no, no" as my writing has evolved with each new thing I write - but that's a good thing.
Considering that Kirkman wrote episode four, you could really see the evolution of his dialogue from Volume 1 of the comic from years ago, to this most recent work on the TV adaptation.
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Originally Posted by acealive1
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