Once again, AMC has announced a spin-off for the zombie series The Walking Dead. It is supposed to revolve around Maggie and Negan, but fans are upset by this for many reasons.
What Happened? On Twitter, The Walking Dead's official channel shared a new teaser image (via twitter.com). The image shows a new series in the TWD universe: it's called "Isle of the Dead" and the main characters are Maggie and Negan, who have new adventures in Manhattan.
How come, you ask yourself? Well, of course, me too! The series finale seems to include a reconciliation of the characters. Stupid, because already Daryl and Carol, now Negan and Maggie and the Rick Grimes movies say: The series finale of The Walking Dead will be completely irrelevant.
In the series finale of the mother series of The Walking Dead, it must crack. All fans should agree on that. But already the last two episodes of season 11b wasted a lot of time with filler content. The fans' wishes for the grand finale are clear:
What do we get out of this? Basically, we shouldn't expect any of this -- and that's always good advice. Series and their finale episodes tend to create gigantic hype that the actual ending can't live up to.
In the case of The Walking Dead, not even broadcaster and producer AMC seems confident in the finale. Why else would spin-offs be announced that take place after the finale and already set the fates of various characters in stone? Already we know that Daryl, Carol, Maggie, Negan and Rick will march out of the finale alive.
More and more spin-offs are springing up, making the actual finale completely redundant. Apparently, the finale isn't final in the slightest, because with most of the characters just continuing on afterward, how can this be emotional?
When does Isle of the Dead start? As early as 2023, the 6-part miniseries is scheduled to appear on AMC and AMC+.
What bothers the fans? It's AMC's name-dropping that's pissing fans off. They question the tactics behind spoiling the finale just to announce another spin-off. User OriginalLaClair writes, for example:
"Jesus Christ, please stop! [...] You could have just said that a new spin-off with two popular characters is coming. Instead you give away the names."
Another user accuses AMC of spoiling its own shows with love itself. Just a few weeks ago, they introduced the return of Madison Clark (Fear The Walking Dead) in a Talking Dead episode, instead of keeping the surprise going until the Season 7 finale.
Others say that with the end of the parent series, the cannibalization of the franchise has only begun. Already, quite a few spin-offs have been confirmed, and more are being traded under the Writers Room counter:
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What do you think? What do you expect from The Walking Dead finale, and what do you think of the new spin-off? Do you think AMC should have kept it to themselves, or are you happy about the announcement? No matter what you have to say, the comments and our community discord are open for you!
I have to disagree. I think it is pretty cool they are using new shows to make up for the “unaccounted” time leading up to finding out where Rick is being held. To me, IMO, I thought there was going to be some huge plot hole at the start of the Rick Grines movies, however now that they have announced the Isle of the Dead with Negan and Maggie, it is pretty obvious that with this new show they are “most-likely” on a quest to find Rick. If you can remember, back to Jadis and her kidnappy days, Negan witnessed the CRM helicopter on its way to make a pickup for its “A”. It is possible he went out looking for the chopper and it’s owners, after leaving Alexandria and of course, his arch nemesis, Maggie, who has already expressed her urge to kill him and the control she doesn’t have when she “see’s red”. And tbh, I think it is pretty set-in-stone, the fact that Maggie survives the Walking Dead, her character outlived most of the adult characters in the comics, she was last seen alive at the ripe, “old” age of 48. And SPOILER alert*** Negan survived the comics as well! Carol and Daryl didn’t exist this far into the comics, and Daryl well he never even existed, like at all. So my hypothesis is that I think AMC and the creators wanted to give fans something back after taking Rick and Carl from a comic book driven television series, which famously revolved around this very famous pair in particular, bada bing, bada boom, they thought up this new and otherwise great idea to create a show involving the fan favorites, Carol and Daryl. And the resurrection of many long—dead and past characters in the other new spin-off, Tales of the Walking Dead... to me it feels like they are trying to make amends for mistakes they’ve made and compensating for recently declining ratings. Honestly, I think they have done a great job in the past few years. With the pandemic, now even with the war in Ukraine, and with incident after incident it would seem, they have bounced back yet again. There are mistakes they cannot fix, like killing Carl, I know that is just my opinion, but he was the last man standing in the comic books. However, again, that is just an opinion. Many others believe it was a cool twist, since the ending is open to be rewritten. Which they have done in the past, however the only difference is that it was never with a character as important to the story as his was. If anything should be covered in a story it would be the tweaks they have made to the original story. Thank you. I really enjoyed your article.