Originally published on Set The Tape
With The Walking Dead television series entering its 8th season, and becoming more popular than ever, many fans are demanding more content.
Fear the Walking Dead explored the beginning of the zombie outbreak, but what other areas of the Walking Dead universe could be given their own spin-off?
Outbreak Elsewhere
With every story in the Walking Dead universe being set in North America, there’s potential to explore how the rest of the world would handle the zombie apocalypse. Whilst there are many different options for a spin-off set elsewhere in the world, a setting that doesn’t have the easy access to guns would make for an interesting counterpart to the main show.
Great Britain is an excellent candidate for such a setting, one that has been used successfully for zombie stories in the past. As 28 Days Later showed, there are some iconic British locations that would make for stunning visuals. A fun example of a London based zombie apocalypse, the little played Zombii U on the Wii U, shows how scary tackling undead hordes with only a cricket bat or metal pipe can be.
A Walled City
Whilst the main series has explored this idea in some of the locations the survivors call home, such as the prison and Alexandria, a walled city is a concept that hasn’t been explored in great detail.
Instead of a small group of survivors inside a small walled location a spin-off could easily expand the concept to a walled city home to hundreds of people, such as Pittsburgh in Land of the Dead. How would such a society work? What threats would they face from both inside and out?
It could even play with the formula of the show, changing location to somewhere else in the world entirely, or jumping forward in time to create a city that has been surviving against the undead for decades.
The Telltale Adaptation
The Telltale Walking Dead game was amazing. The first season of the game is easily one of the most engaging, addictive, and heartbreaking games I’ve ever played. Whilst adapting the story for television wouldn’t lend itself to an ongoing series, it would easily make a great mini-series or one off season.
The adaptation could even be made to fit into the main show in the same way that the game connected with the comic series, featuring small cameo appearances from Glenn and Hershel.
The Telltale game had such a powerful and emotional story to it that many fans of The Walking Dead will have not experienced due to not being gamers, bringing this story to television would mean that everyone has a chance to experience one of the best Walking Dead stories to date.
Soldiers
One area of the zombie apocalypse that The Walking Dead has touched upon slightly in the past is the military. We’ve seen groups of survivors that have included soldiers, but these insights have often been fleeting.
A series could easily follow a group of soldiers and military personnel during the early days of the outbreak through to the time that the main series is set in. This show could be similar to the main series, with the group being survivors simply trying to stay alive, or, they could have an actual mission that they need to accomplish.
If working towards an actual goal this would also allow the opportunity to look into what remains of the government, and how they would try to function during the collapse of society.
Anthology Series
One of the more popular spin-off ideas is an anthology series. This would allow the most creativity, and would even allow the creators to incorporate all of the other spin-off ideas. An anthology series would allow the creators to tell multiple stories, some that could be brand new to the Walking Dead universe, and others that could feature pre-established characters or plot threads that have been left dangling.
It could explore how characters such as Andrea, Dale, Glenn, Michonne, or Daryl came together as a group before they found Rick in Season One. It could show how Merle escaped the rooftop in Atlanta and ended up with the Governor. It could show the rise of Negan. It could explore what happened to Morales after leaving the group.
Having an anthology show would also allow the show to bring in other well known actors who want to be involved in the franchise for a role in an episode or two for a single story.
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