The Walking Dead's final season has earned some very vocal feedback from viewers.
is a phenomenon that took America's Sunday nights by storm. Fans of the original comic flocked to watch the pages come to life on television, and the property earned additional fans once it aired on AMC.
Fans watched intently as Rick Grimes made his way out of the hospital and was inevitably reunited with his family. What followed were many seasons filled with twists and turns, plenty of gore, and even some questionable storylines.
Even still, continues to grow, having mobile games made after it, and even spawning , a spinoff that takes place in California and details the start of the zombie infection on the West Coast while Rick Grimes was still in the hospital.
is now in the second half of its final season, an end that is long awaited by many viewers of the show and consumers of the original comic it is based on.
Season one of . The episode, titled , had a whopping 5.35 million viewers watching it, making it the most-viewed series premiere in AMC's history.
This first season consists of just six episodes and uses the first six issues of comics as a reference for its episodes.
This first season of the show did incredibly well, with the lowest viewership happening with episode two, although it still garnered 4.71 million viewers. Its season finale did exceptionally well, capping off the season at an impressive 5.97 million views.
The Walking Dead was renewed due to its incredible popularity and returned for its second season with double the episodes for fans to enjoy, and it was this season that introduced the mid-season finales and midseason premieres.
Season two was even more successful than the first, getting 8.99 million viewers to tune in for its finale.
Seasons three through nine had the number of episodes once again increased from thirteen to sixteen.
Throughout this time viewership would wax and wane from an all-time high of 17.29 million in season five to as low as 4.15 million in season nine.
Even with its viewership hitting an all-time low, returned for its tenth season, once again increasing the number of episodes to twenty-two.
Season ten of proved to be its lowest viewed by far, at one point dipping to just 1.94 million viewers.
Now in its eleventh and final season with twenty-four episodes at the ready, viewership has fallen well below that of its premiere season.
This season has been broken up into three parts, with part three currently on air. Part three opened with just 1.19 million viewers.
Although season eleven is still airing, with very few episodes left of the season, the focus has been placed on the shows' similarity to issues 175-193 from the original comic.
So far, season eleven appears to be focusing on the remaining group members' .
The Commonwealth is a network of around 50,000 survivors that appear in both the New World Order portion of the comics and this final season, and are under the control of its Governor, Pamela Milton.
Milton has an army of guards that follow her commands, all of which wear white armor and are heavily armed, and are led by Mercer.
The TV adaptation of also , who is integral to the remaining survivors, including the likes of Maggie and Yumiko, reaching the Commonwealth in the comic book series. This character is portrayed as a little aloof from her lack of interaction with people in both the comic and the show.
Some characters from the original comic to see a peaceful end and while the end of the show hasn't happened yet, and viewers aren't yet sure who will make it and who won't, there are still some characters from the source material that appears at the end of the show.
Much like the end of the comics, the final season of appears to include at the end.
While the comic does appear to have Rick Grimes, the main character for most of the show's seasons, make an appearance toward the end, he has yet to make an appearance in this show's final season.
Both the television show and the comic book show that the main characters will eventually have some kind of conflict with the Commonwealth, as is expected from the show's formula, with the remaining survivors attempting an escape/takeover in both.
has certainly earned its fair share of criticism, and there's no doubt that viewership has dropped due to the deaths of fan favorites and the seemingly repetitive plots.
Perhaps one of the biggest upsets in final season is the development happening between Maggie and Negan.
Negan was the "big bad" during the show's seventh season, and he brutally killed off fan-favorite character Glenn, who was in a relationship with Maggie's character at that time.
Maggie vowed to avenge Glenn's death; but after several seasons and many opportunities to exact her revenge against Negan, .
While appears to be giving Negan a path to redemption, he did also tell Maggie
Media outlets have also been a bit critical of this final season, , stating "The Walking Dead opened its final season with a lackluster outing featuring mid-card stories and underwhelming cliffhangers."
Commenters on this same post called The Walking Dead's storylines "repetitive and predictable" with many saying they had given up on watching the show long ago, citing poorly written episodes and plot lines.
Among the negative majority, few positive comments exist, with most centered around Negan's character and praising Jeffrey Dean Morgan's portrayal of the character in the season eleven premiere episode.
