TWD: World Beyond is a limited series. Here’s what that means

It was announced that The Walking Dead: World Beyond is going to run as a limited series. Here’s what that means for World Beyond and for TWD Universe.

The Walking Dead franchise is shaking things up with the latest spinoff. Along with the premiere date of April 12th it was announced that The Walking Dead: World Beyond will run as a fixed two season limited series. That’s something new for the franchise, and it opens up some very exciting possibilities for the future.

So what is a limited series? How will this change TWD world? A limited series means that the show already has an end point. The story is designed to run for a set number of episodes and all of the writing will be moving the story towards that point. The show will get to tell a complete story that has been planned from the beginning instead of starting a story in season 1 and writing it in an open-ended way so that it can continue if the show gets renewed or finish if the show gets cancelled.

Limited series have been used by other networks to tell a story that isn’t big enough to go on for multiple seasons or to tell dramatic stories that have a fixed narrative. Big Little Lies is a good example of a limited series. The Night Of is another good example of a limited series. Another one would be Sharp Objects. Even Game of Thrones was a fixed series because it was always designed to end with the battle for the Iron Throne.

By choosing to introduce a fixed series into the franchise The Walking Dead is opening up all kinds of possibilities for telling survival narratives that have definitive endings. They can also use limited series to tie together part of the universe.

What This Means For TWD Universe

This could be a game changer for how The Walking Dead universe shows intersect with each other. TWD World Beyond is focused on survivors from one community that is linked to two other communities. We know that World Beyond is going to run for two seasons and then end. Will there be a fixed two season series for each of the other two communities? That would be an intriguing way to see how different parts of the country and different groups of survivors are dealing with the apocalypse.

Limited series adventures could also see many crossovers of characters from one show to the next, and the characters from the limited series could show up in The Walking Dead or Fear The Walking Dead since those shows presumably will continue the way they have been with no fixed end in sight.

Limited series could also be used to explore the past. One or two season limited series could bring back beloved characters as fans get to see their origin stories and how they survived the earliest days of the apocalypse. A limited series could even do what Fear failed to do in its first season and take a deep dive into the fall of the society.

There are practically endless possibilities for how this limited series format could be used within The Walking Dead universe to tell more stories and to enhance on the ongoing primary narrative of the survivors in the original show.

What do you think of the limited series concept TWDFamily? Tweet us @SonyaIryna and @UndeadWalkingFS and tell us what you think about the introduction of limited series into TWDUniverse.