Do you think the spinoff budget for writing is really low? I'm trying to understand why the writing is so bad when we used to have writing like the cherokee rose and "we have a future" etc.
[I can answer this in one sentence, but I'm not sure if it'll mean anything without context, so I'll put that behind a cut.]
Things vary a bit between studios and also with what kind of show it is that's produced, but the short answer to your question is: the writing can only ever be as good as the showrunner is at their job.
The studio makes a deal with the showrunner who hires people for the writers' room. WGA has established certain rates and fees that the writers get, but what kind of deal the studio strikes with the showrunner depends on their track record and reputation. Do they produce quality shows? Do they bring viewers on the strength of their previous work? Do they produce on time and under budget? Do they run a smooth, low-maintenance cast/crew? A seasoned showrunner who's a good plotter and knows how to keep trouble at bay, whether that's production hiccups or BTS antics, is worth a bigger paycheck.
Studios are obsessed with mini rooms these days and they like to let the rest of the writers go after pre-production, so the showrunner is often the only writer seeing the project through production, providing writing services on the set. The writers' room has to have at least three producer-level writers who has the necessary experience and skill level to manage a project, but if a show is shot on location, the studio normally doesn't want to send writers out (on-set experience is vital to learn how to produce) as a measure of cost cutting.
Anyway, the room breaks the story based on the showrunner's vision. The showrunner assigns who writes what episode. An episode goes through several stages (from outline to treatment to draft), all of which will be read and get notes by other people. Usually the second highest ranking writer does most of the hand-holding because the showrunner is busy with other things, but it depends on the size of the production and the room itself. If it's a small room and a short season, the showrunner might have eyes on everything at every stage.
Nothing passes from the room to the studio (or N/W EPs) without the showrunner having signed off on it. There's always a lot of people having many opinions on a script and it will go through many drafts before it gets 'locked' and handed over to the production crew to turn it into a production (shooting) script. Even after this point, the script isn't actually done. If the director has an opinion on something during the shoot, there might be changes to a scene. If a location becomes unavailable, the weather changes, someone has a rash/limp/bruise... physical changes necessitate on-set writing services. Things can get changed/tweaked in post-production too, e.g. a line will get rerecorded or cut.
Everything about a TV show is in a state of flux until post-production is done and the studio has approved the final version.
That's my roundabout way of saying that the writing can only be as good as the showrunner is. The showrunner decides on the pitch. It's their vision and tone for the show. It's the job of the other writers to replicate that voice. Showrunners will go in and rewrite things however they see fit, so it happens that things 'degrade' in revision if the showrunner is the weaker writer. A good showrunner recognizes the different strengths of their writers, puts the right person to write the right script and lets the writers feel like their contributions matter.
Individual writers have so little control of the content or the form, so it's up to the showrunner to manage them. Give them moments to shine, but for that to happen, the showrunner needs to have some self-awareness and be willing to incorporate new and better ideas when their writers pitch things. A big part of being the head writer of a show is the ability to listen to others who have more knowledge (or better imagination!) than you do, but the showrunner should be the strongest plotter on the show.
Obviously, AMC didn't pay for a showrunner who has worked steadily, who's adapted their skills to the new market model, or who values the input of others. Zabel's background is in traditional broadcast TV, writing procedural shows where characters are expected to service the external plot and get 'reset' to a certain degree at the end of the episode—there's not much character progression over a season. Zabel is far outside his comfort zone working in a new genre that he seems to have no more interest in than he does his inherited main character's backstory.
You get what you pay for and AMC didn't pay for top-shelf. They didn't even shell out for a halfway decent writer who's familiar with the source material. Zabel is the very definition of 'priced for a fast sell,' but that also makes him easy to control. He doesn't quite know what he should be doing or how, and he owes the male EPs for picking him out of that bargain bin.
That's why the writing is bad.
