This will contain spoilers both of characters who have died or who are still alive, which in a show full of character death is a spoiler in and of itself.
First off, the death of a character is not about that character but about how that death affects others. Whether it motivates them to action, motivates them towards nihilistic inaction, or changes their world view, a character's death has to mean something.
Sometimes a character's story arc is complete, and in a medium in which character death is prevalent, their death opens up opportunities for new stories within the same universe. For The Walking Dead comic with over 150 issues, one way to keep it fresh is to introduce new characters. The cast of characters has to be replenished, and this can lead to new dynamics between existing characters and newcomers.
In the sixth season, the group moves away from the prison and Georgia to outside DC in Alexandria. In the comics, this was after a huge culling of characters who died in the prison attack including Lori and Judith. Alexandria was a chance to introduce new characters and new stories. However, in the show, a huge problem reared its head. There are too many unkillable and/or non-canon characters. Non-canon characters can include those who were never in the comics, or those who should have died long ago, but still live on. Unkillable characters include Rick, Crrrl, Carol, Daryl, and Mischonne. Non-canon characters include Daryl, Carol, Judith, Sasha, Tara, and Enid.
The first season followed the comics fairly close, even having the same number of episodes as there was in the first volume. After that, AMC ordered more episodes per season to cover less of the comics. This lead to storytelling that would deviate from the comics in some ways and weave back into the comics for major events. They have deviated from character deaths as well. At the time, it was touted as "even if you have read the comics, you never know when someone could die." The problem is that those characters still live on in the comics and continue to have important storylines. This would be as if Marvel decided to kill off Captain America in The Winter Soldier, and then have to cast Non-Canon Man against Tony Stark in Civil War.
The sixth season of The Walking Dead has had probably the most amount of living people deaths to date, but there has been no impact with these deaths. Supposedly, according to The Talking Dead, these characters have names, but they are forgettable. There is no reason to care about the people of Alexandria because the original group is still so large. Over the seasons, a lot of characters from the comics never made it to the television screen, but some characters, like Heath, have made it. Instead of being an important character, his storylines have been given away to a non-canon character, Tara. Sophia should still be alive, but because of the shit-storm that was season two's writing, they had to give Sophia's role to Enid.
So how can The Walking Dead recover from this? They have to nut-up and start killing characters. Not just characters who were meant to die like Jessie, but other characters stealing stories from important characters. They should start with Tara, and move on to Carol, Sasha (who has stolen Andrea's badassness), and finally finish with Daryl. I would even accept a death from issue 100 in the comics if it was replaced with Daryl, because at this point, Daryl's death would have the same impact as the comic had than if they were actually faithful to the show. Fans may riot, but it is better than the show continuing to die a slow painful death that does not raise back up.
The one thing going for Fear the Walking Dead is because it does not have to adhere to another medium, the show can kill whomever it wants. As long as it does not get to the point of The Walking Dead by having a group so large that new characters no longer matter.
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