Bringing characters back from the dead? That’s the kind of plot device usually found on daytime drama to goose ratings and arouse sleepy fans.
So when did shows such as “Game of Thrones” and “The Walking Dead” become soap operas on par with “Days of Our Lives,” which famously brought back notorious villain Stefano DiMera (Joseph Mascolo) from the grave, or “The Young and the Restless,” which killed off Adam Newman and revived him — with another actor (Justin Hartley) playing the role?
The closest we’ve gotten to this daytime sensibility, until now, is on ABC’s “Scandal,” which killed off Jake Ballard (Scott Foley) last season — or so we thought — and then changed its mind and returned him to the land of the living. But the Shonda Rhimes cartoon is not a show anyone takes seriously anymore. It’s easy to attribute these decisions to writers running out of material.
You certainly don’t expect these shenanigans from “The Walking Dead,” yet that’s what it did with Glenn (Steven Yeun), who was supposedly devoured by some hungry zombies. The show removed Yeun’s name from its opening credits and, when Glenn miraculously returned last week, fans smelled a rat. And they were right. Six seasons along, “The Walking Dead” has killed off so many original characters that it needs to hang on to those it has left as ratings inevitably decline and AMC hangs on for dear life to its only big hit.
“Game of Thrones” also seems to be suffering from its reluctance to kill off a popular character. The HBO hit spectacularly ended its fifth season with the Julius Caesar-style assassination of Jon Snow (Kit Harington). The nerds and fanboys who made this show a global sensation immediately went from deep mourning to conspiracy-theory overdrive when photos surfaced of Harington on the Belfast set when “GoT” went back into production for Season 6. The speculation that Snow was not actually dead, despite being repeatedly stabbed by the men of the Night’s Watch, kept the show’s fan base percolating all summer long.
Now a new “GoT” promotional poster showing Snow’s blood-flecked face seems to confirm our worst fears: that Snow will somehow come back to the Westeros fold when the show returns in April. Are we not supposed to notice that despite the cast’s posh accents and the stunning location shooting, this is basically a low-down, dirty, “Dallas”-style trick? No doubt the show is under the same pressure as “The Walking Dead” to keep an entire network going. HBO execs have publicly said they’d like to see “GoT” run 10 seasons, though creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss planned on seven seasons and novelist George R.R. Martin — who wrote the books upon which “GoT” is based — hasn’t even finished the next tome in the series.
If this is the best that “Game of Thrones” can offer, perhaps that Best Drama Series Emmy it won last September was awarded prematurely. If a show is running out of good material, it’s time to call it quits.
Resorting to these soap opera-style plot devices smacks of desperation.