What, pre-menstrual heroines?
No.
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Andrea arrested in Arkansas.
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
Anyway, I was thinking more of some polishing of the dialogue, a bit more attention to the motivations of the characters, and maybe less predictability in the plots.
A bit of humor wouldn’t hurt either; even in grim circumstances, people engage in a light-heartedness.
Maggie arrested in Virginia.
I’m not entirely sure what would make “The Walking Dead” better - that’s part of the frustration. It just needs to stop being so…stupid. So frustratingly, annoyingly stupid.
(Although Joss Whedon’s involvement would probably be a good start. 
)
There have been plenty of practical suggestions in this and previous threads.
But if I had to provide one primary general suggestion, it would be to abandon any sense of duty to adhere to the books. Use whatever characters and bits of story that works, but don’t even try to make them similar.
I know readers of the books have told us that there is a lot of divergence, but I think it probably needs to be more so, or at least the writers need to feel even more free to do so. Shit, they’d probably see immediate improvements if they started using writers that haven’t even read the books. The story’s framework is already set in the existing episodes, so just have them riff off that and maybe give them some future character profiles and very rough story scenarios.
I think a lot of it just doesn’t translate well.
That’s probably a good start - it sounds like they’re so far from the comics at this point, that it’s really moot what went on in the comics.
Maybe they need an overall arc, too - it seems like they’re just flying by the seat of their pants, and it’s not working.
My husband and I were discussing this last night - what they really needed to do this last season was work on some plans for longterm survival, not have a spat with the bunch down the road. What a freaking waste of time.
Truly, they’re already down that road. I’ll spoiler some of the differences that immediately come to mind:
[ul]
[li]There is no Darryl or Merle[/li][li]Shane dies by Carl’s hand[/li][li]Shane never makes it to the farm[/li][li]Sophia does not die and is in fact, still alive in the comics[/li][li]There is a large story arc that puts Andrea and Dale together as a couple[/li][li]Dale lives much, much longer and has a great death[/li][li]Carol’s husband is not in the books[/li][li]Carol is mentally fragile and hooks up with Tyreese[/li][li]She then goes off the deep end after catching Tyreese and Michonne together and goes the Death-by-Zombie route (though ultimately, Andrea shoots her).[/li][li]The stuff with Andrea and the Governor- both good and bad- never happens[/li][li]He holds Michonne instead and does horrible, horrible things to her[/li][li]Which never happens to Maggie [/li][li]Herschel does not lose a leg[/li][li]That fate falls upon Dale[/li][li]But Rick does lose a hand[/li][li]Lori dies during the prison ambush by the Gov’nor[/li][li]The baby also dies[/li][li]The Governor decapitates Tyreese[/li][li]And kills Herschel[/li][li]The Governor dies by one of his own henchmen (henchwoman)[/li][li]The only people left alive at the prison are Rick and Carl. Michonne is elsewhere, and Dale took Maggie, Glenn, Sophia and Andrea back to the Farm[/li][/ul]
Chronologically, all of that gets the books up to where the show left off in the last episode. So when I say the show has veered wildly away from the events in the books, that’s not an understatement. Divergence is not what they need; they’ve got that in spades. What they need is a plan, not based on one or two cool scenes the writers have in mind, but an actual storyboarded beginning/middle/ending for each episode. How about a point-form outline of how they want each character to develop as the season goes on? Do they even have character bibles they refer to when they write an episode? Do they have synopses of story arcs they want to develop? How about trawling message boards to see if there are any small errors or oversights they continue to make that annoy the fuck out of some of the audience? Etc.
Did you have to look that up? I’ve been calling him “Big black guy they don’t let speak” all season. I’ve also been wondering why he gets zero lines; don’t actors make less if they don’t speak on camera?