Since the end of The Walking Dead, the series franchise about the fight for survival in the zombie apocalypse has been continued with spin-offs. Although these continue the stories of different fan favorites, they all share the same criticism: seasons that are far too short. However, that will soon change with the sequel to The Walking Dead: Dead City.
The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 2 will be longer and Lauren Cohan fought for it
Next year, the second season of the spin-off series The Walking Dead: Dead City will be released in the USA on AMC and in Germany on Magenta TV. This will surprisingly no longer six, but eight episodes include. And we have Lauren Cohan to thank for that.
Speaking to Screen Rant, franchise boss Scott Gimple recently revealed that the Maggie actress was fighting for the season to be renewed for two additional episodes. Lauren Cohan explains the reason for this as follows:
It’s very, very difficult to prepare everything and get the engines going to shoot a series and then only shoot six episodes. It feels like you stop right when you start. And we had a lot more story to tell this year, a lot more characters to introduce and a lot more things to develop between the existing characters, and so it was really exciting to have eight episodes for that. Yes, I fought pretty hard for it.
Lauren Cohan is involved in the series not only as an actress, but also as a producer. In the second season she will also make her directorial debut and direct an episode herself. Thanks to her influence on production, Dead City is now the first spin-off series of the new era of The Walking Dead to receive more than six episodes per season. And given the upcoming plot, it actually makes sense.
The Walking Dead: Dead City solves the spin-off problem
While the first season sent Maggie and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) into the heart of Manhattan on a rescue mission, the story in Season 2 now more complex and bigger. This time the focus is on different factions (and new characters) from New York who are preparing for a resource war – and suddenly the former adversaries are once again on opposite sides of an escalating conflict.
Dead City is going one step further by increasing the number of episodes major point of criticism of the new The Walking Dead series out of the way. While the individual seasons of the parent series usually consisted of 16 episodes, the most recent spin-offs all had to make do with a measly six episodes per season.
Even if Dead City, The Ones Who Live and The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon counteracted the shorter running time with a faster narrative pace, the small number of episodes sooner or later caused dramaturgical problems and rushed character developments in almost all cases.
When does The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 2 start?
We’ll find out next spring whether two additional episodes are ultimately enough. Expected to be in March 2025 Season 2 of The Walking Dead: Dead City will premiere on AMC and Magenta TV. A few months later, the third season of the Daryl Dixon series follows in the fall, which moves its action to Spain – unfortunately only with six new episodes.