AMC Confirms The Walking Dead: World Beyond Will Only Run For 20 Total Episodes – Forbes

The Walking Dead: World Beyond

AMC surprised a lot of Walking Dead fans yesterday with the news that its upcoming third Walking Dead series, World Beyond, will only run for two seasons before ending, a fixed output from the outset.

I asked AMC if they could tell me how many episodes that would be total, as weve seen both 6 episode and 16 episode seasons of The Walking Dead and Fear. They told me that its going to be two 10 episode seasons (presumably without a mid-season break) for 20 episodes total.

This is all part of an experiment for AMC to adjust to the changing media landscape in terms of how people want to watch and consume TV or TV-like content. In short, they dont need to stick with this fixed format of 16 episode seasons split in half every year, so theyre trying something new with a hard limited series in World Beyond, meaning they should have a clear story arc in place. Heres AMCs Sarah Barnett at TCA:

What were doing next is experimenting. Were making a movie with Universal featuring the Rick Grimes character. And the third television series in this universe, World Beyond, focuses on the generation of survivors who have grown up post-apocalypse. Led by two young female leads, it is a perfect advancing of the universe in ways that are multi-generational, fresh and unexpected. It is not imitating The Walking Dead either in substance or form - World Beyond is a two-season closed-ended series that will tell a very specific and distinct story. Scott Gimple, the chief content officer of this universe, and his team are planning other experiments in this space, including specials, digital short-form series and other innovations in form.

Iactually think this is a good idea.

The Walking Dead: World Beyond

I was concerned about the concept of having 48 weeks of the year eaten up by Walking Dead series, as it seemed like overkill, but knowing that World Beyond is a fixed series gives me hope for the potential to tell a complete, unique story, as opposed to say, The Walking Dead, which AMC wants to live forever.

That seems to be the plan. The Walking Dead main series will continue to exist in perpetuity no matter which cast members leaves or whether it reaches the end of the comics. Then different Walking Dead universe experiments will happen around it, like the Rick Grimes movies or World Beyond. It also stands to reason that AMC will probably do things like the Negan origin special, and theyve already talked about bringing dead characters back through other kinds of limited series. Fear the Walking Dead is also going to be doing a sort of experimental season this year with the cast completely separated from one another, though I think as part of this plan, it might be best to wrap up that series sooner rather than later at it has been dismal the last two years.

The idea of a two-season limited series is interesting because that lets you avoid the kinds of problems that have plagued the two existing Walking Dead series. Namely, huge shifts in showrunners and therefore tone, like between Fear season 3 and 4 (which was a change for the worse) or Walking Dead season 6 and 7 (also for the worse) or Walking Dead season 8 and 9 (which was for the better, thanks to Angela Kang). I would rather see more mini-series like this pop up than to see a show like Fear drag on for years longer than it should. That seems like the right call to me, and theres a lot of potential for interesting ways to expand the universe here.

More to come, but I like this idea, and will look forward to Beyond this April.

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AMC Confirms The Walking Dead: World Beyond Will Only Run For 20 Total Episodes - Forbes

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero