The Walking Dead: All 11 seasons ranked from worst to best

10. Season 6

The Walking Dead had plenty of ups and downs by the time it had reached the halfway point of its 11-season run, but season 6 is when things truly started to go wrong for the show. In all fairness, it was a mostly solid season, focusing on the survivors’ continued attempts to establish Alexandria as the future of their group, all while protecting it from a massive herd of the dead – that eventually resulted in a nail-biting invasion as the walkers inevitably found their way inside the walls.

Its issues came in the back half through the mostly off-screen introduction of Negan and the Saviors. Don’t get me wrong, their overarching presence was thrilling but because this show champions excessively long-form storytelling, the payoff needed to be worth it. And, well, the infamous Negan monologue and blood trickling down the camera trick wasn’t.

The show successfully built up The Whisperers as a mostly off-screen threat in succeeding seasons, but the reason it didn’t quite land with Negan was the fakeout moment. It rubbed fans up the wrong way, extending the wait across the summer when the payoff was already overdue.

If anything, at least they learned their lesson for when the time came to introducing the next threat.