Are People Finally Bored with 'The Walking Dead'? 

Are People Finally Bored with 'The Walking Dead'?

With its impressive ratings slipping, is the show doomed to shamble on like, well, a zombie?

America’s love affair with the zombie has driven

to unprecedented levels of success over the last five years, with each season debut reaching new incredible highs. However, for the first time in its impressive run, the sixth season opener saw a dip in ratings from the previous season.

 both report that the latest debut drew in 19.5 million viewers with delayed and DVR estimates figured in. While still impressive by all accounts, this falls short of the Season 5 premiere’s 22.3 million viewers. And though fans of the comic remain consistent, keeping the book selling at about the 65,000 mark every month, it doesn’t match the fervor of when the show’s fans were snapping up multiple copies of each issue just before the season 3 premiere, driving sales past the six-digit mark. This all begs the question, are people finally starting to get bored of

This isn’t a question meant to deride the show’s quality. With every property, even a darling like

, eventually attention wavers. The honeymoon ends, the passion of the marriage dies out, and daddy needs to have a hot and dirty affair with some other zombie-related floozy down the road. And even with that, there have always been the fans of the comics who have never been excited about the prospect of going through the same events again, and with lesser storytelling by many accounts. Not to mention that going by message board comments around the web, no other show is at one time so loved and despised by its viewer base.

Some days, it really feels like the best thing to come out of

is the endless stream of Rick and "Coral" memes. If anything will determine the trajectory of viewers in the near future, slow but certain drop-off or a return to form with still-rising numbers, it will be the handling of the upcoming villain, Negan. The one thing

has long been lacking is a really strong central antagonist. The way the show used The Governor has largely been criticized as a waste of the character, and since then the show’s antagonists have been quickly dispatched, or lacking in scope and world-shattering menace. If anyone can save the day, ironically, it will be the sadistic Negan, who’s brutality shaped the

comic for dozens of issues, and who continues, 40 issues after his revelation, to bring nightmarish menace and affliction to Rick\'s survivors. If anyone can break the monotony of killing walkers and finding food, it is this, the savage opposite of Rick’s communal ideal.

is in no danger of going away anytime soon. But time will tell if new additions to the legacy like

 (pulling about 7 million viewers and mixed reviews), will revitalize and strengthen the franchise, or merely dilute overall enthusiasm. There will always be the die-hards out there who can never get enough. But with every franchise, there comes a point where, after endless streams of spin-offs, video games, board games, comics, action figures, commercials, talk shows, forum wars, etc., the majority stops and says, “You know, I’m good. I’ve had enough.” With

, after five years of media saturation, we may finally be approaching that point. It’s not really a question of

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