The Walking Dead - Interview with Glen Mazzara

My first question is a point of clarification: How much creative input did you have in the first seven episodes of the second season?
A tremendous amount of creative input. This is a Darabont question, I guess? I wrote an episode during the first season, and I was brought on before any of the other writers. I helped hire them. I was Frank’s number two. But we broke these stories, we were locked in a room for weeks and developed these stories.

When things went down with Frank and I was asked to become the showrunner, we were shooting… I think it was our fourth episode. Our fifth episode came out. Our sixth episode I made changes to — just things where, you know, that script needed a pass. The (midseason) finale was written while Frank was there, but he had never given notes on that. That was a script that I polished and put into production. And then these episodes that are coming out are episodes that I broke with the writers. So I think that’s pretty clean.

But I will say, I went back and I had to re-cut these episodes. I cut these episodes, I’m responsible for all of the editing, post-work, music, I was responsible for all of the usual showrunner duties. So that was a tremendous amount of influence.

… Listen, I respect Frank and I’m happy that he wanted me as his number two. …I wouldn’t say we were partners, but it was a collaborative effort. Frank collaborated with us. But there came a point where the material was drying up in the pipeline, so I had to get in and do some polishing. That’s just normal business. But I will say that the overall arc of, a girl goes missing and then she’s in the barn, that was developed under Frank. The overall arc of the back half of the season, that’s all mine.

I will say that, (regarding) the script for the midseason finale, I think I was lucky that we had a great writer and a great director on that episode. That was sort of me coming out of the gate. Does that make sense?

It makes perfect sense.
What I didn’t want to do was my version of a Frank Darabont show. I wanted to follow, and I wanted to honor the world that he’s created because that’s a world that I love. But I didn’t feel an obligation to try to become Frank Darabont. That isn’t fair to Frank and it isn’t fair to me.

…The voice of the show became different with the midseason premiere. Did you see it yet? That’s my voice.

Source: Full interview @ IMDb