My quick rating - 8.4/10. I will give a global rating since I just finished all 11 seasons that I started binging in December while attending to my fiance in Sydney. As with any show, some episodes are better than others and to be honest, I would've rated this a bit higher except for one KEY element this show consistently did that pissed me off. I'll focus on that since I am sure there are thousands of well-written reviews over the years of the show itself. It really is that damn good and far exceeds being a "zombie" show. And since I was so far behind, I am also in a position to watch them all in chronological order with all the offshoots (click HERE). The show relied on strong characters and there are some great ones. Casting was a top priority for the staff and they seemed to nail the proper actor time and time again for these roles. I would be doing them no justice selecting a few so I suggest you just check IMDB for yourself. Storylines, cliffhangers and the constant ability to entice the viewers, in this case, me, into eagerly watching the next episode to see just what happens. But that leads me to my biggest gripe since I said I would be brief. Along with great characters, there is the need for treacherous villains. The handful of writers also nailed this aspect and made sure that you despised them for who they were and what they stood for. This is a very good thing and necessary to get us invested in the good vs evil nature of the show. The zombies often were an aside from this or just a tool. But the writers insisted on making sure the characters hated the villains, be it Alpha or Negan along the way. There were others as well. The characters, no matter who it was would absolutely SWEAR that when they got a chance, they were going to KILL the said bad guy. And over and over again we would see these characters get easy chances to actually kill them and NOT DO IT. I am not talking about first-time killers having remorse or anything like that. These are the same people shooting or stabbing other living beings at will when they have to for survival all of a sudden choking when it is their turn at bat. This wasn't some one-time occurrence either, this was literally 11 seasons of it happening CONSTANTLY. I got to the point of starting an episode and saying to myself "Who is going to let Negan live this time." And you can insert any bad guy throughout the whole shows run, since it was a constant theme. Ok, I got that off my chest. Aside form that stickler, the show is great, and shouldn't be missed.
