The Walking Dead Fans Campaign To Not Let Andrew Lincoln Leave

the walking dead andrew lincoln norman reedus

Last week it was announced that Andrew Lincoln, who’s played Rick Grimes on AMC’s The Walking Dead for the best part of eight years now, will be leaving the show – on the entirely reasonable basis he’s sick of transatlantic commutes and spending months out of each year away from home, and that, having held up this role for almost a decade, is now in a position to do pretty much whatever he wants.

The fans have reacted poorly, launching a petition on Change.org to keep Lincoln in the show, asserting that it won’t be the same without him. Given last month’s successful petitions to save Brooklyn Nine-Nine and The Expanse, this is not, on the face of it, a completely senseless idea. However, there are huge material differences between having an entire show recommissioned, and keeping a single actor involved with a show which, by all accounts, he’s gotten fed up of doing. There’s also another material difference in that the Brooklyn Nine-Nine and The Expanse petitions gathered tens of thousands of signatures within days, whereas this one is, at the time of writing, treading water at just under 2,500.

When Amazon picked up The Expanse, I wrote that this hinted towards the dirty business of commissioning television programs taking a more democratic direction, with the fans actively making their voices heard and the moneymen responding in kind. And this is perhaps still so, but few important referendums come down to a margin of 2,500 – it’s a decent number for storming a palace, less so for a protest vote aimed towards a frankly unrealistic goal.

There’s also perhaps a comparison to be made with the recent Roseanne debacle – a show which was cancelled after lead actress and executive producer Roseanne Barr tweeted something which was widely described as racist (because it was). When the network dropped Barr, the show sank with her – but in that instance, she was the cornerstone. Having a show called ‘Roseanne’ without Roseanne is at best fancy-pants farcical humour, very much the opposite of what they were going for.

The Walking Dead, however, is called ‘The Walking Dead’, not ‘Rick Grimes and Pals in: Zombie Fun for Everyone’. Further, although Lincoln was beloved in his role and tallied a fair few awards for it, co-star Norman Reedus – who’s poised to slip into his shoes – has notched up several awards himself. And even sans Reedus, The Walking Dead has a hefty ensemble cast – just like the zombies they tear chunks out of, when one falls, there’s a good twenty ready to take their place.

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