'The Walking Dead' is making another huge (potentially worrying) change for Season 9

Are you still watchingThe Walking Dead? There’s a good chance you’ve dropped off a tad - there are only so many zombies you can see without getting bored. But if you are (well done!), then, along with the news that Andrew Lincoln is leaving the Walking Dead after 8 years on the show, we’ve got some other news for you about the upcoming season 9 of the show.

Essentially: it’ll be in the future. How exciting! Or, genuinely worrying.

Like, we’re not talking the year 5079 here - loads of space zombies shooting laser beams out their open, rotting wounds - it’ll most likely be about two years ahead, much like in the comics.

The new showrunner, Angela King, said during a ‘Kick-Ass Women of AMC’ panelon Wednesday: 

“We’re playing with time in the season, so we get to jump forward in the story.”

She also mentioned her desire to focus more on female characters:

“We’re going to see some really great stories with the women in our show, particularly. And I think for people who are really invested in Michonne [Danai Gurira], Maggie or Carol [Melissa McBride], there’s such great material for them. For people who are looking for that specifically, they will see some really incredible work from our women.”

It’s a similar to the changes in Season 8 of spin-off series Fear The Walking Dead which is also set several years ahead of the previous season (and also includes a least two different timelines) and has featured the deaths of two characters that have been around from the beginning, plus the introduction of Morgan, crossing over from The Walking Dead. Many have already speculated that the shock deaths and timeline could be to test the waters before the shocking death of Andrew Lincoln as Sheriff Rick Grimes, and maybe even a potential merging of the two shows in several seasons time. Which would be pretty exciting. Who wouldn’t want to see Rick and Daryl going toe-to-toe with Strand or Daniel Salazar from Fear The Walking Dead? 

Similarly, losing Rick, the shows original protagonist and star character, means that the show will likely lean more upon female characters like Maggie and Michonne to lead the story forward, something that has also been seen in Fear The Walking Dead across the previous two seasons.

So lots of change then, but isn’t that exactly what the show needs? Yes, it absolutely is - hopefully it’ll be enough of a change to grab the viewers that have fallen off and drag them back in. We’ll have to wait and see…

(Image: AMC)