I followed The Walking Dead for 11 seasons, Fear the Walking Dead for at least half that, and watched every spin-off premiere. But at this point, I had no idea there was even a new season of Dead City airing, and it feels like things are winding down even more than we saw right after the original series ended.
Dead City is almost done with its second season, but I’m barely aware this is happening. My colleague Erik Kain is still reviewing it, I see, but it’s so irrelevant at this point we don’t even joke about it internally anymore.
The Walking Dead appears to be condensing back into a single show, one with two characters from the old series and a distant location. That would be Daryl Dixon, following the adventures of the badass biker overseas, recently adding his BFF Carol back into the mix. AMC is barreling forward with the series with quick greenlights and at least four seasons despite season 3 not arriving yet.
I would be surprised if the Negan/Maggie-centric Dead City makes it to season 3. What viewing data we can see shows the series may have lost around half its audience between seasons. Daryl Dixon dropped too, but not that much. And these are not cheap shows. Zombie series in these settings are still going to be pricey, and so AMC certainly has that to consider.
If Dead City does not survive and it’s just Daryl Dixon from here, what else is even happening past that? The Rick and Michonne series, The Ones Who Live, appears to have truly been a one-off so that’s done. Another round of Tales of The Walking Dead, an anthology series, is supposed to be changing from a show to digital shorts for another season and that has no release date or window.
There are not any announced or even leaked Walking Dead shows in the works from here. Everything seems to be getting channeled into Daryl Dixon alone, and this idea that a giant, expanded universe would spring from the death of the original show is slowly petering out. The series gets occasional injections of life when seasons of these spin-offs are put onto Netflix as part of AMC’s deal with them, but that is short-lived.
I like The Walking Dead. Well, I have liked quite a bit of The Walking Dead, but even those involved with the series have to admit there have been significant lows and some questionable story decisions. But we really do appear to be reaching the end here, going from a massive series and ensemble cast down to really just two characters from the original hanging out in Europe. It all seems to be coming to a close for real this time.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
