What Walking Dead spinoff are we looking forward to the most? Tales of The Walking Dead? The Maggie-and-Negan show? The Rick Grimes series? Let’s go in:
AMC has gone all-in on its hit zombie franchise The Walking Dead. The show, which debuted on Halloween night in 2010, is heading into its eleventh and final season beginning in 2021. But that doesn’t mean fans have to say goodbye. With two spinoffs already airing and many more projects in the works, there’s a lot to look forward to.
The Walking Dead has only scratched the surface of what’s possible in this universe, and contemplating its future is thrilling. I’ve been with the original show show for a long time and I’m excited for the franchise’s future, but there are some projects that are way more exciting than others. Below, we get into the details.
But first a quick note: While it’s a big source of excitement for fans, The Walking Dead season 11 didn’t make the list; this is only for spinoffs, follow-ups, prequels and the like. Let’s get started:
6. Untitled Daryl Spinoff
At first we heard that Carol and Daryl were getting their own Walking Dead spinoff…and then Melissa McBride dropped out and now it’s just the Daryl show. You might be wondering why a solo show starring this popular character is listed last. Before you get mad, allow me to explain.
I don’t have a problem with a Daryl spinoff, but I do think the fall 2020 announcement changed the way I view the main series, and that bugs me. The Walking Dead is heading into its eleventh and final season, and knowing that Daryl will ride off into the sunset in some form or another after the series ends kind of ruins the suspense.
Thinking back to the big announcement that Norman Reedus was getting a hefty pay raise after Andrew Lincoln’s departure, knowing his contract was secure had a similar impact on the viewing experience. If he had a guaranteed contract, there was no way he going to die in the series (despite AMC’s insistence that he could die and be paid anyway). So whatever happens in the final season, we have a good idea that Daryl will be safe.
For that reason alone, I’m placing the Daryl spinoff last on the list. I’m sure it will be a great show and I will watch and support it, but I wish the secret had been left a secret until the original show was over.
5. Isle of the Dead
More recently, AMC announced a new Walking Dead spinoff starring Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), a mismatched pair if there ever was one. Remember when he brutally beat her husband to death with a baseball bat? Oh, the adventures they’ll share.
Isle of the Dead will find these two exploring the zombie-infested island of Manhattan, which has been more or less closed off since the disaster started. Why do they go there? Why are they together? We don’t know, but we know it’s happening.
Once again, this is an intriguing premise, but once again, AMC has essentially spoiled the final season of the show by announcing it. And in this case they’ve been particularly shameless, putting Maggie and Negan’s name at the top of the poster.
Now we know that Maggie and Negan survive the series. And the giveaway is worse than with the Daryl-Carol show, since at least in that case we can understand why those two would want to run off together; they’ve been good friends for season, even if they occasionally hit a rough patch. In season 11, The Walking Dead is playing up the idea that Maggie and Negan may well kill each other, and now all that tension is gone.
Isle of the Dead gets placed a spot higher on the ladder before AMC seems closer to debuting it — there’s a poster, after all — and because we’ve seen too little of zombies in an urban environment. Seeing New York City crawling with undead could be very cool…but it would have been better for the network to wait to announce it.
– Dan S
4. The Walking Dead Comedy Spinoff
Though the world of The Walking Dead is a pretty dark place, after 10 years and hundreds of episodes between all three current series, we’ve gotten some moments of levity, too. So why not spin those into their own series?
TWD chief content officer Scott M. Gimple announced plans for a comedy set in The Walking Dead Universe during a 2020 holiday special. And it sounds like he’s dead serious: “We are working on a straight Walking Dead comedy right now. We’re not making fun of our world, but it’s just more of a comedic take on the world.”
How in the world would a comedy set in the apocalypse work?
If you’re going to have a comedy set in the TWD Universe, that means that the characters must be in some semblance of a safe place, because there’s nothing funny about having to fight to survive. If it’s set in the early days of the apocalypse, then it could feature people seeing crazy things happening around them. That could be funny. Or weird. Or both.
Or it could revolve around characters like Tara (Alanna Masterson), who always looked at life through rose colored glasses and had a pun or a joke lined up when there was too much tension in the room.
A Walking Dead comedy, if done properly, could be really incredible. But it has to be done right, or else it will be awkward and won’t fit in the TWD Universe at all.
3. Fear the Walking Dead Season 8
If I had to venture a guess about how long Fear the Walking Dead will last, I’d offer that it’s shaping up to be a nine-season series, with three trilogies that are loosely tied together by cast members and stories.
Seasons 1-3 tell the story of Madison Clark and her family, seasons 4-6 the tale of a group of people looking for meaning in a meaningless world, and seasons 7-9 are about the rise of a new leader, Alicia Clark, and the survival of the people left behind after the nuclear blast.
Season 6 really turned the show upside down, and if I’m being honest I’m more invested in what happens with Fear TWD than I am with any other TWD series because what they’ve done is so innovative and different; it has my full attention.
In season 7, the odds were stacked against the survivors and walkers were the least of their concerns. The radiation from the nuclear blast put lives in danger, and it was be a race against time to get somewhere safe.
Fear the Walking Dead is full of potential and there’s enough material to last several seasons, at least through season 9 and possibly beyond.
2. Tales of the Walking Dead
Of all the projects set in The Walking Dead Universe, Tales of the Walking Dead has the most potential. Why? Because it’s an anthology that allows writers to tell stories featuring long-dead characters as well as new characters fans haven’t met yet.
In a lot of ways it’s like the AMC equivalent to Marvel’s What If…? And I’m not complaining.
If you’re a fan of Michael Cudlitz’ Abraham Ford and want to know more about his character before his tragic demise at the business end of Negan’s bat in season 7, then it’s possible for Abe to return, alive and well, in Tales of the Walking Dead. Anyone can come back, and that’s the beauty of it.
As much as I appreciate the original Walking Dead source material by Robert Kirkman, I really enjoy the times when the shows do something unexpected. Tales of the Walking Dead is a chance to have an entire series of unexpected moments that can also bring back fan favorite characters and explore new stories from different perspectives.
Tales of the Walking Dead is innovative, fresh and new. It’s exactly what the franchise needs now that it’s branching out from the flagship series and charting a new course.
The new world NEEDS Rick and Michonne. pic.twitter.com/orvvTo8sHi
— The Walking Dead (@WalkingDead_AMC) July 22, 2022
1. The Rick Grimes and Michonne show
Ever since Rick Grimes left the original show in season 9, fans have been promised that a series of movies would wrap up his story. But things change. We’re now know that, instead of movies, we’re getting a six-episode series about Rick and Michonne. The Walking Dead boss Scott Gimple describes the series as “an epic love story.”
The entirety of The Walking Dead comic book revolved around the story of Rick’s quest to rescue his family and protect them from the dangers of the zombie apocalypse. The television show followed the comic books closely at the start of the series but it eventually deviated from the source material as actors came and went. While comic book Rick lived until the end of the series (kind of…) along with his son Carl, in the show’s universe Carl was killed off and Rick was captured by the Civic Republic Military in season 9. After picking up his trailer, Michonne left to find him not long after. We haven’t seen either of them since.
Knowing that TV Rick is not destined for comic book Rick’s fate, fans have been eager to learn more about his whereabouts. For fans who have been on the TWD journey since the show’s premiere in 2010, there can be no closure until they learn what happened to Rick Grimes. That makes the Rick Grimes and Michonne show the most anticipated new project in the TWD Universe.
The series doesn’t have a title yet, but we do know that it’s coming out sometime in 2023. We’ve been waiting years for answers. Finally, we’ll get some.
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