when did this show really fail

Season 1 Episode 4 was the first sign the show would fail.

The premise was to show how the downfall happened. They moved away from that and turned it into a poorly written Walking Dead program in Season 3.

Season 4 saved the show for me and John Dorie became my favorite character. Unfortunately the over the top writing got worse and worse as the show went on. Especially after they killed off John Dorie.

The show "failed" shortly after it started. It was supposed to show the gradual arrival of the plague, how it slowly but surely became the zombie apocalypse, and how people gradually adapted to living in the zombie-infested world. What we got, though, was a show that dealt with the zombie apocalypse shortly after the series started. From then on it became a so-so Walking Dead clone. I am surprised it has lasted so long.

The show was on the right track until they decided to change the original writers/directors and tried to make it like the original show. So starting with S4 is when the show started going downhill. The fact that they ended S3 on an incredible cliffhanger leaving you anxious about what was to come only to come back to a completely different show was a major let down to say the least. Wasted potential for something that could have rivaled or even been better than later seasons of TWD.

I think it was when they lost the boat.

I can't even remember exactly what happened to it but they were all on that Strand's yacht at one point. The opportunity was briefly there to make this show like a fun spin on The Love Boat, where they'd pull into shore somewhere else in each episode and help the guest stars of the week deal with their localised zombie issue before leaving them behind at the end to move on to the next literal port of call...

Anyway, they balls'd it up and next thing you know it was just a crappier version of the original show, which was itself already very crappy by that stage.