TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

AMC apparently fired The Walking Dead‘s Showrunner, Frank Darabont:

An agency source says Darabont is “notoriously a pain in the ass” known for “taking a feature-film approach to television,” which is meant to suggest that he didn’t manage the brisk pace of television well. But an insider says Darabont’s approach was what made Walking Dead special. “Frank fights for the show,” says an insider. “He doesn’t just do what the network wants him to do. … He’s a filmmaker, and that’s why the show was as good as it was.” Sources with ties to the show insist it was on schedule and on budget.

Odd—that’s precisely what made the show so good. It sounds like AMC wanted to significantly reduce the show’s per-episode budget and, possibly, Darabont was upset by that and wasn’t going along with it. There’s nothing wrong with cutting a budget if they can’t afford it, but The Walking Dead was not only one of their finest shows, but their biggest success, too; screwing around with it when it worked so well in the first season doesn’t make a lot of sense.

It’s too bad, because that’s the show I’m most excited for this fall. I’m not a big fan of zombie movies, but I absolutely loved The Walking Dead, because it was more about the people than zombie gore. (Although it had plenty of that, too.)