Liked but not loved the first three episodes, with a lot of fine things but also some big problems that were pretty much similar in all three, so actually Season 7 did start off with good potential but quite quickly lost it. "Service" was a big disappointment and was the episode where Season 7 began to stumble and kept stumbling, found it a dull and bland episode with too much talk and far too much of a weakly written Negan.
"Go Getters" is for me a better faring episode than "Service", there is actually signs of characters and story progressing (even if not a massive amount) and didn't have the problem of having Negan and his overuse unbalancing everything like that episode did. It is not near as good as the first three Season 7 episodes though and would call it one of the middling, meaning not one of the best or worst of the season, ones. Not awful, less than brilliant and more uneven.
There are certainly good things. It's well made visually, made with a lot of style and atmosphere without being gimmicky or trying too hard. Some of the music fits nicely, but uncharacteristically for this point of 'The Walking Dead' it left a mixed impression on me. There are moments of tension, everything with the walkers and how they're defeated (especially the tractor one) were immensely satisfying and much more so than what should really have been the source of the episode's tension.
Absolutely loved the female character writing, particularly great was Maggie being the most interesting she was in a while. Really liked the chemistry between her and Sasha , especially when at the graves. Lauren Cohan and Sonequa Martin-Green do a great job here.
Did feel that the male character writing was less good, with only Gregory and Jesus, both nicely acted, being interesting. Didn't see much point to Rick, as great a character he is, being here as he has little to do and what there is does such a compelling character no favours, while Carl didn't have much presence and was annoying. Steven Ogg does not fare badly as Simon, but didn't think still that he was menacing enough.
Regarding the story there were tense moments and there is progression, but it is mostly fairly dull and feels very padded from being narratively quite thin. The dialogue is not as long-winded as in the previous Season 7 episodes (yes, did think this aspect was a weak link in the first three too), but it does lack tautness and has moments of unintentional laughter. Did like that there were attempts at glimmers of hope, after such heavy-going previous episodes to the season, but the more uplifting moments feel very forced and that is including the more hopeful-sounding music too. "Go Getters" does lose momentum in the second half, which lacks the necessary tension. The Simon encounter suffers from being very derivative and it was just odd having the feeling that the way Simon is written was like Negan had possessed his body at that point or that they had had body swaps or something.
Summarising, not bad but uneven. 5/10
"Go Getters" is for me a better faring episode than "Service", there is actually signs of characters and story progressing (even if not a massive amount) and didn't have the problem of having Negan and his overuse unbalancing everything like that episode did. It is not near as good as the first three Season 7 episodes though and would call it one of the middling, meaning not one of the best or worst of the season, ones. Not awful, less than brilliant and more uneven.
There are certainly good things. It's well made visually, made with a lot of style and atmosphere without being gimmicky or trying too hard. Some of the music fits nicely, but uncharacteristically for this point of 'The Walking Dead' it left a mixed impression on me. There are moments of tension, everything with the walkers and how they're defeated (especially the tractor one) were immensely satisfying and much more so than what should really have been the source of the episode's tension.
Absolutely loved the female character writing, particularly great was Maggie being the most interesting she was in a while. Really liked the chemistry between her and Sasha , especially when at the graves. Lauren Cohan and Sonequa Martin-Green do a great job here.
Did feel that the male character writing was less good, with only Gregory and Jesus, both nicely acted, being interesting. Didn't see much point to Rick, as great a character he is, being here as he has little to do and what there is does such a compelling character no favours, while Carl didn't have much presence and was annoying. Steven Ogg does not fare badly as Simon, but didn't think still that he was menacing enough.
Regarding the story there were tense moments and there is progression, but it is mostly fairly dull and feels very padded from being narratively quite thin. The dialogue is not as long-winded as in the previous Season 7 episodes (yes, did think this aspect was a weak link in the first three too), but it does lack tautness and has moments of unintentional laughter. Did like that there were attempts at glimmers of hope, after such heavy-going previous episodes to the season, but the more uplifting moments feel very forced and that is including the more hopeful-sounding music too. "Go Getters" does lose momentum in the second half, which lacks the necessary tension. The Simon encounter suffers from being very derivative and it was just odd having the feeling that the way Simon is written was like Negan had possessed his body at that point or that they had had body swaps or something.
Summarising, not bad but uneven. 5/10