‘The Walking Dead’ Gives A Timeline For The Negan, Maggie, Daryl, Rick And Michonne Shows
Paul Tassi
Senior Contributor
Jan 11, 2023,09:47am EST
I have wondered if all of the planned Walking Dead spin-offs would survive the recent upheaval over at AMC, where poor financial results have resulted in mass layoffs, surprise cancellations and even reversing previous renewals of shows.
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I have wondered if all of the planned Walking Dead spin-offs would survive the recent upheaval over at AMC, where poor financial results have resulted in mass layoffs, surprise cancellations and even reversing previous renewals of shows.
But if AMC has its bread and butter, it’s The Walking Dead. So far, the only casualty is the announcement that Fear the Walking Dead is ending after its eighth season, no great tragedy, considering it should have ended about four seasons ago in the first place.
However, the planned Walking Dead spin-offs that are all supposed to air in this new post-main series era are all still going forward. Not only that, but AMC is now putting together a more coherent timeline for them, including an order in which they will air.
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Dead City,the spin-off which follows Negan and Maggie trying to rescue a kidnapped Herschel in Manhattan, will air in June of 2023, after some previous talk that it might air in April instead.
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Daryl Dixon, the self-titled Daryl spin-off where he’s abducted and taken to France, where he’ll have to deal with the “fast zombie” variants over there, is supposed to air some time in the later half of 2023, as it’s currently filming. Possibly in The Walking Dead’s old October premiere slot.
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The Rick and Michonne spin-off, which has evolved from the concept of Rick Grimes movies, and will cover Rick’s imprisonment by the CRM and Michonne’s quest to find him, will air some time in 2024, and production has not started yet.
One thing that remains cloudy is the fate of Tales of the Walking Dead, the anthology series full of standalone stories that AMC has not confirmed renewed for a season 2 or cancelled just yet. My guess is we don’t see it return.
So, will this spin-off-based direction work for AMC? What I’m still not clear about is if all these shows are meant to be miniseries or not. At certain points it’s sounded like the Daryl and Rick shows were, so what happens after one season of those? Does The Walking Dead finally die, or do they pick new characters to spin-off from the old main show? I’m a bit confused about the long term plan here.
Second, it’s about to be a not-great time for The Walking Dead given that a slate of reviews are coming in for HBO’s The Last of Us that include a lot of praise that’s along the lines of “what if The Walking Dead was actually good?” for the fungus-based zombie series. In reality, it’s true that The Walking Dead has not been the best zombie show on TV in a while now, given that series like Kingdom, All of Us Are Dead and Black Summer exist. And now, The Last of Us.
I just don’t know how heavily AMC can rely on The Walking Dead here going forward, but we’ll have to see what the next year or so brings with these new series.