Entire first-season writing staff of "The Walking Dead" fired

Despite getting some of the highest ratings AMC has ever seen, The Walking Dead will be heading into the second season with a complete turnover in its writing staff. With the terrible simplicity and shock of a bullet to a zombie's brain, Frank Darabont, the series' executive producer/director/writer, has let go all of the show's writers just two days after a few days before the first season finale. Why would he do this? Well, two reasons: first, it seems like the writing staff wasn't doing quite as much writing as you'd expect. From Deadline:

Darabont... ended up writing 2 of the first season's 6 episodes of Walking Dead - the pilot and the second episode - and co-writing/rewriting the other 4. Two of those 4 were written by non-staff writers, one by executive producer Robert Kirkman, on whose comics the series is based, and one by Glen Mazzara.

The other reason is that Darabont is considering abandoning a writing staff entirely and relying solely on freelancers to script the second season's thirteen episodes. Apparently this is more common with BBC shows; in fact, it might even lead to some trouble with the WGA. Of course, nothing's official yet.

My opinion (since I know you're dying to hear it)? The first season of The Walking Dead was pretty up and down, and dialogue was not its strong suit. Maybe some fresh blood is what it needs? (Get it? Because of zombies.)