For many people The Walking Dead has been out of fashion for years, whether they grew bored of it, they only watched it because it was the big thing for a few years, or they Seasons 7 and 8 turned them off to the point they quit outright. I can only hope for those that that quit have heard strong word of mouth on Season 9 and Season 10A because it’s really solid stuff that’s the closest to Season 4, which to me is when the show peaked in quality.
February–April: The Walking Dead Season 10B
I'll be rewatching Season 10A before the Mid-Season premiere on February, 23rd. I'll post a review of the first 8 episodes near that date.
Many in TWD fanbase complained that the first half of S10 was slow and not a whole lot happened, and I can understand that. I think it did a marvelous job in setting up the second half and moving pieces where they need to be and they accomplished that in a very organic way, writing characters so their motivations line up with where the characters ended up the mid-season finale. The second half of S10 should be fast moving with quite a bit of action as we should see an end to The Whisperer storyline….but that is not guaranteed.
In the comics there was a significant bleed through between The Whisperers and the next story arc, which is introduced on the show already via Eugene’s radio. If it plays out anything like the comics we may see The Whisperers last until 11A while the new arc is introduced, and then we’ll be fully in that by 11B – think of it how The Governor Arc ended in Season 3, but we got a couple episodes of him in 4A. I like that even I don’t know where or even how things will play out. They’ve already made significant changes to this arc, some not apparent yet, some already settled like Dante being a different character altogether. Certain key events have been foreshadowed yet they might only be doing that to throw off comics fans so some key events might happen in different ways or not at all. If it’s anything like the comics it’s sure to be excellent, especially if they fix a few of the choices Kirkman made, which I am sure they will do.
In terms of what to expect story-wise, I’m not going to get into any potential spoilers save for when it comes to the core cast and things which have been announced months ago, so if you don’t know and don’t want to see this, skip to the next section.
During the back-half of this season, we will be seeing the departure of Michonne from the regular cast. There are rumours what episode exactly is her last, but they filmed all her stuff out of order so there is no definite there. The current rumour is the island she is going to with the guy from the mid-season finale is going to lead her to learning something about Rick, and venturing off to find him to move her to the Rick Grimes movies, which will be easier for Danai schedule wise. It’s possible this is all rumour and they’re going to kill her off. There is a major death in the comics coming up with no applicable TV character to easily slide in there and if she’s leaving, that may be her way out. In addition, we’re supposed to see Maggie return this season though I wouldn’t expect her to show up early. She won’t be a series regular again until next season.
April-June: The World Beyond
We still don’t know much about this third series. One thing I know for sure is that it is only 10 episodes, which is a blessing. Fear The Walking Dead would be FAR improved with only 10 episodes too. It takes places in a town called Monument, I think in West Virginia, (the trailer says it has like 50,000 people or something) approximately around where TWD is now in the timeline, or a little behind it.
It’s a coming of age story focusing on a group of young adults which adds a unique angle to this show as we see them grow up in the apocalypse. The press release when it was announced said some of the kids would become heroes, others villains, so it would be really cool to see a tight knit group develop and split apart, with some becoming evil…it definitely offers some good storytelling opportunities. I remember back when people thought Madison from Fear was going to become Alpha and that whole series was a Whisperer prequel…which was a bad idea, but a cool approach to a story. It would have been cool to see The Clark family fracture, for one to become a villain the others have to face, for all of them to become a villainous group, a family tainted by the apocalypse whom maybe that Rick and Co might have to contend with one day…just not as The Whisperers.
I’d say if you’re not into the coming of age thing, there will be a lot of world building going on. We’ve already seen footage of the CRM (helicopter people) in this show in promos and I’m sure we’ll get connections to the next big arc on TWD and possibly even Fear. Much like TWD had A Larger World with Hilltop/Kingdom/Oceanside/Sanctuary/Heapsters, the universe itself might replicate that with large communities at the center of each series, but they can all be separated by shows, leading to, hopefully, less muddle storytelling.
Some of the early photography for World Beyond looks very nice, a lot better than Fear has looked for the most part since Season 4. It looks like they’re maximizing the budget as they probably have a little bit more money for each episode with 6 less to produce. I’m excited, but with how bad Fear has gotten, I’m not overly excited. But I am very hopeful.
June-September: Fear The Walking Dead Season 6
If you didn’t read my many criticisms of the basic problems of Fear Season Five, you can read them here. Needless to say, Fear is in trouble. Season 4 had a good first half and a weak second half. Season 5 was weak all the way through with only maybe 3 episodes I’d consider to be pretty good, the rest weren’t even horrible, but just blllaahhhh, which is worse to me.
Scott Gimple recently did an interview where he talked about Fear. He said Season 5/6 were meant to be one long story so Season 5 was all about setting up Season 6, and he thought they did a good job (I know it’s your job to big it up, Scott, but JFC!) and it makes A LOT of sense in why so much of the season was muddled. They were mostly focused on the endgame and just killing time to get to it. It suffered majorly from shitty character motivation like Seasons 7/8 from TWD, but it didn’t even have a constantly moving plot as an excuse. It just fucking meandered and painted trees. Now, I do hope that if they were just killing time to get to Season 6 and they’ve got where they wanted to get, that Season 6 will be focused and tell a damn good story. It better or I’m out.
Gimple also said there is some kind of time jump. He didn’t say how long or if it’s catching up to the other two shows or not. He said there will be more self-contained story episodes, like with John/June in Season 4 (the best episode of Fear) and Al/Isabelle in Season 5, and I am all for that. The characters are all split up as it is (typical Fear storytelling haha) so I hope they play this out smart.
Give us 8 episodes, all telling separate, barely connected stories. Show us what these characters have done for the past 2 years or 6 years or however long the time period will be, and make the stories good. Have them all build up separate elements that all come together in a fantastic second half of the season. Most of these characters need to be totally re-established…some need to be established for the first time.
I’m not really looking forward to Fear because S5 was such a letdown. But I’m choosing to remain optimistic the show can turn itself around, if only because it gave us that fantastic third season after a pretty bad second season…though that was the old show runner. It also doesn’t look good since the entire back half of Season 4 was to set up Season 5, and that did not work out.
October-December: The Walking Dead Season 11
There isn’t really much to be said right now for Season 11 of TWD without getting into major comics spoilers and talking about the next arc. I’m sure most TWD fans heard the comics finished last year even if they never read them. That’s lead to speculation that TWD will be wrapping up in Season 12, which would be around where the comics end.
At the moment the show is at around issue #150 and the comics end with issue #193. And without getting into spoilers, of the central characters in the final issue of the comics, few are still alive in the show, and one is leaving the show and if you’ve read this far that you’ll probably guess who that is. Also since the ending of the comics is so hinged around Rick and Carl, the same ending is pretty much impossible. To complicate it more, the two central characters on TWD right now are Carol, who dies way back at the prison in the comics, and Daryl, who isn’t in the comics. To just fuck it all up to the max, another major character for the next arc is Dwight, who is now on Fear.
So what story are they going to tell? Fuck if I know.
Are they building to some kind of endgame? Fuck if I know.
But if Angela Kang is still running things, I have faith it will be good.
The Rick Grimes Movie Trilogy: Film #1
Little is known about the movies right now. We know Andy Lincoln and Rick will be in them and it’s about 99.9% certain that Pollyanna MacIntosh will be playing Jadis. It’s possible we’ll see Heath since it’s strongly implied Jadis traded Heath with the chopper people (we’ll at least learn of his fate if he’s dead). Will Michonne be in the film at all? Where is it going to take place? What is it going to be about? We don’t know.
What I know is they’ve said they’re going to go all out on the visuals and make it look great so I’m hoping it looks really cinematic, but they don’t go over the top because it’s a movie. It needs to tell a very good story first, look impressive second, have big thrills third.
At the moment, it seems they’re going to start filming sometime in 2020 and we’ll might get a release this year, or early in 2021. If they are planning on ending the main show, it’s possible that they may move some characters from the show over the movies for the 2nd and 3rd one to finish The Walking Dead show through the movies, and some other characters may end up on the other shows after. So many possibilities.
Other Future Projects
Gimple also spoke of other projects he’s working on for TWD, like a limited run series or an anthology show and stuff like that. And I am all for that. I’d much rather see a single 6-10 episode series set in the world, that starts and ends, without any pressure to stretch it out for 5+ seasons and constantly come up with new stuff for the same characters. It would be great for them to have an idea, script it out to about 8 hours, and make that eight hours as good as they can.
The Walking Dead has an unlimited universe to tap into. They can set limited run series anywhere in the world. Maybe they can’t greenlight a multi-season show set in China or Japan or Hawaii or Alaska, where either the culture opens up many storytelling options or the unique environment offers many things, but they can do a miniseries or single season story. Let’s see a show about pirates during the first months of the apocalypse like we got a brief taste of in Fear. Let’s see a tsunami strike a coastal city and have it bring tens of thousands of walkers floating in the ocean with it. Let’s see the Middle East during the zombie apocalypse. Let’s see a group of homeless people become kings of a city in the apocalypse. Let’s see what a zombie apocalypse would be like on one of those massive cruise ships! The possibilities are endless provided they have a great story to tell with a zombie apocalypse backdrop.
2020 is the biggest year for The Walking Dead. Will it be the best year? Will it set up next year as the best year? Will it all blow up in AMC’s face? I don’t know, but it’s sure going to be one hell of a ride either way.