Creating a sense of ambivalence within a show is generally a quality of a good show, with good writing, good acting, etc.
But what about meta-ambivalence? In “The Walking Dead,” I feel a growing sense of contempt for Rick’s wife and son, Lori and Carl. She is constantly making terrible decisions and reacting poorly to every new challenge, and Carl is a whiny little idiot. Seriously, if they weren’t Rick’s family, they would have already been killed several times over.
But I don’t want them to die solely because that would necessitate several episodes of Rick pining for his lost family while the current zombie-fighting frat struggles (again) with its identity. And that would get pretty dull…
So the only course of action is to kill every living person in the show and start over with a fresh, new group of humans. What’s the chance of that happening in Season 3?
