AMC's The Walking Dead franchise is a strange beast. You might think that a 15-year-long story built upon a veteran TV show that is no longer on the air would have more days behind it than it does in front of it, but with the TWD Universe you just never know. It has found a way to outlast all expectations, telling new stories in this established world that prove there is more scope to it than anyone initially imagined.
There are still two ongoing spinoffs set in the post-apocalyptic world that has entertained us for a decade and a half. The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon and The Walking Dead: Dead City continue to thrill audiences with new and exciting stories centred on some of the franchise's most recognizable characters. And the best news of all is that both of them have more seasons ahead of them (the former has two more seasons coming while the latter has at least one).
The appetite for more from the world of the TWD Universe clearly isn't dying anytime soon, especially when the new, creative spinoffs continue to thrive. However, news of a TWD veteran's return to the franchise after a decade away couldn't have come at a better time.
TWD veteran Seth Hoffman's return as Dead City's new showrunner is a great thing
AMC renewed The Walking Dead: Dead City for a third season shortly after its second season concluded. Needless to say, the announcement was met with praise from fans who were anxiously awaiting the fate of the Maggie and Negan spinoff. However, that announcement also came with the confirmation that showrunner Eli Jorné would step down from his role. It would certainly mark the end of an era for the show but there was a silver lining, as it was revealed that a legend of the TWD Universe, Seth Hoffman, would return to the franchise to take over as the new showrunner.
Hoffman's name is well-known among TWD fans. He was an executive producer on The Walking Dead for its fourth, fifth, and sixth seasons and wrote a number of episodes during that time too. Among those episodes is the critically-acclaimed "Too Far Gone" - the midseason finale of season 4, which saw the all-out war take place at the prison, ending the rivalry between Rick Grimes and the Governor in bloody, emotional fashion. This was a truly heart-wrenching episode, but it's also considered one of the show's all-time best. Other episodes that he wrote, "JSS", and "No Way Out", are also among the show's finest. Needless to say, the idea of him returning to the franchise now is very enticing indeed.
Hoffman's era of TWD is arguably considered its "peak era" (the first six seasons of the show are all considered among its very best and the second half of those is when it garnered its largest consistent audiences). Think about the storylines that took place during this time: The Governor's demise, the post-prison split for the team, Carol's continued evolution into the badass warrior she was becoming, Terminus, and the beginning of Negan's arrival. All of these were heavy-hitters that played a large part in keeping fans' glued to their TV screens every Sunday night. For better or for worse, The Walking Dead was unmissable during this era.
That's honestly the kind of energy that the franchise could benefit from right now. As awesome as each of the spinoff shows are, there is no denying that the the TWD Universe's biggest and best days are behind it. That's not to say that it doesn't still have gas left in the tank - because it does - but bringing in a veteran like Hoffman to oversee one of those properties could help it make the best out of it, fuelling it towards its next chapter.
New beginnings for Dead City could see it reach new heights
Dead City undoubtedly has an intriguing concept in revisiting the rivalry between Maggie and Negan in the big old larger-than-life setting of New York City, but it has struggled on occasion to stand out among other spinoffs Daryl Dixon and The Ones Who Live. Both of those outings have been praised for offering new stories to the classic franchise to go with their stunning visuals. While Dead City has received a lot of praise too - and deservedly so - audiences have pointed out that it runs the risk of feeling like a retread of storylines we've seen before. Season 2, in particular, received a mixed response.
Maggie and Negan's long-standing feud is the most famous rivalry from the whole TWD Universe, so it makes sense that it got to take center stage in one of the recent spinoffs. And Lauren Cohan and Jeffrey Dean Morgan are once again exceptional in bringing those two characters to life. However, when you consider that The Walking Dead saw Maggie put an end to that feud once and for all in the series finale (in which she acknowledged that Negan had changed and, thus, she would no longer try to kill him... even if she could never forgive him for killing her beloved husband Glenn), Dead City had to reverse course to ensure that its concept would work.
Furthermore, the revisiting of multiple plot threads and character arcs that The Walking Dead already played with years ago (from whether Negan might still be evil to Maggie questioning if she took pleasure in hurting him) has led fans to worry that it might have run out of new stories to tell already. That's not necessarily the case, as there always is story to tell with these characters, but it's a fair point considering that this is the only one of the three spinoffs built primarily on revisiting a classic TWD story.
The good news is that the second season's finale seemingly put all of those questions to rest once and for all, meaning that the upcoming third season has a real opportunity to tell a different story with these two TWD legends; a new one. That's where Hoffman comes in. With a Walking Dead veteran who knows these characters well set to take over at a turning point in their stories, there is real potential to reinvent Dead City.
If Hoffman can bring the same energy to Dead City that he brought to the original series, then the spinoff's best days could very well be in front of it. This one has all the potential in the world and it's so close to achieving that; the bold and creative storytelling from a TWD legend involved in the show's peak seasons might just be exactly what it needs to get there.
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