But I feel like that sort of thing needs to just be accepted with episodic dramas. CSI, NCIS, Law & Order, etc. The main characters get in to these dangerous situations, and in the back of your mind you can't help but always know they're going to get out in the end. It's the Superman effect. No matter how much kryptonite Lex Luther chained Superman up with, we just knew that Superman was going to escape some how. And in the comics, when Superman was finally killed (in one reality) it was a "holy shit" moment, because it meant that much more. Same thing with CSI, and the rest of the shows. Plus, we're now in an age where all the behind the scenes dealings are almost always public knowledge. The fans know who has signed on for more than a season, who's holding off, who's unhappy, etc. For instance, Andrew Lincoln signed on for something like five seasons of The Walking Dead, if it goes that long. Well, we know Rick isn't going anywhere for five seasons. Now The Walking Dead is a unique situation because it also has the source material readily available for public knowledge, the graphic novel.
Granted, Kirkman has said many times that he doesn't mind them straying from the source material while writing the show, and the TV writers love doing it. But think about how many story arcs we're already able to spoil for ourselves. There's no guarantee that they'll hit and follow each and every one of them, but it gives us a chalk-written timeline to follow.
To give you an example about the era we're living in, they spoke about on The Walking Dead how the finale (or last few episodes) of the season is going to contain...
Season 3 is going to be the start of, in my opinion, everyone being "fair game".