Dead Man Walking: Fond farewell, Frank...

There's nothing worse than having something awesome, then going and screwing it all up. For some completely unfathomable reason, the great Frank Darabont is stepping down as showrunner from AMC's uber-hit The Walking Dead.

Either that or he was pushed.

Frank was just at Comic Con, too, enthusiastically promoting the series' second season.

Darabont invested 5 years trying to get Robert Kirkman's zombie saga on television, ultimately writing and directing the pilot for AMC, giving the network their highest ratings of all time. Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, The Mist) is from the feature world, and he may have had difficulty adjusting to the daily grind of series television, having expressed some frustration with TV-sized budgets. But he'd also spoken of the new environment in positive terms: "In TV, you have to get ideas across in a more economical way," he said. "But the process is fundamentally the same, just accelerated. There’s no time for second-guessing. The wheels are in constant motion. I love that about television. If I’d known how much fun it was, I’d have done it years ago."


Glen Mazzara, his number two, will step in as showrunner in his place. Mazzara has worked previously on The Shield (good news), but was also quickly replaced as showrunner on Showtime's first season adaptation of Crash (bad news).

Here's hoping Frank stays on in some capacity as consultant, because if Mazzara and company lose the tone and vibe that's been established, The Walking Dead will start staggering fast. This development really bums me out.