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The Parents Television Council Is Not Happy About The Walking Dead’s Season 7 Premiere

The Walking Dead, Jeffrey Dean Morgan
AMC

Fans of The Walking Dead have been waiting ages for season seven to premiere. After the intense cliffhanger left by the season six finale and hints from the cast about how the Walking Dead world was going to be flipped upside down, we had so many burning questions that gave us enough anxiety to last a lifetime. 

This, however, wasn’t the issue the Parents Television Council had with The Walking Dead. No, you could totally leave us hanging on the edge of our seats for months. That’s A-Okay. Just when you finally ease our anxiety by showing us what happens, it better not be too violent.

Warning: there’s literally no way to say this without spoiling a bunch of stuff from The Walking Dead’s season seven premiere. 

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The much-awaited season seven premiere was brutally violent. Following up on the massive cliffhanger of last season, we finally figured out who caught the wrong end of Negan’s barbed wire bat. It turned out to be quite a few people, and AMC wasn’t shy when it came down to showing them quite literally losing their heads. It appears that the Parents Television Council also lost their heads during the season seven premiere (in a much more figurative sense than being smashed in by a bloody, barbed-wire bat).

In an interview with THR, Tim Winters, president of the PTC, had a few complaints.

“Last night’s season premiere of The Walking Dead was one of the most graphically violent shows we’ve ever seen on television, comparable to the most violent of programs found on premium cable networks,” Winter said. “It’s not enough to ‘change the channel,’ as some people like to advocate, because cable subscribers — regardless of whether they want AMC or watch its programming — are still forced to subsidize violent content. This brutally explicit show is a powerful demonstration of why families should have greater control over the TV networks they purchase from their cable and satellite providers.”

Winters believes that The Walking Dead deserved a much more severe rating that TV MA (which currently does not exist) and the show totally overstepped their bounds. Even though the series’ time slot allows for more blood and gore than earlier shows, it still airs an hour early for F-words and other similar graphic content.

“When you look at definition of MA and what content of the show is, it’s unquestionable they chose what best represented the content,” Winter said. “This certainly raises question of if there should be an even more severe rating than TV MA.”

The Walking Dead’s executive producer Greg Nicotero isn’t phased by the PTC’s complaints. He is sticking by his work and writing off the negativity. In his mind, it’s simply too good for certain people to mentally comprehend. What an attitude!

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“It’s unfortunate that people want to take a negative spin on it because as far as I’m concerned I’m dedicated to watching a show to see where it goes next,” he told ComicBook.com. “That means we have done something to affect these people in a way they don’t necessarily know how to process.”

It’s no secret that The Walking Dead is full of gore. We don’t watch zombie movies for the conflict-free, politically correct story lines, do we? YouTube some sleepy puppies or baby sloths instead if you can’t hack it.

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