How Tales Of The Walking Dead Will Look Very Different From Past Shows

The Walking Dead may be coming to an end after season 11, but an array of season 10 bonus episodes and spin-off shows like Fear the Walking Dead and Walking Dead: World Beyond have made it clear that the franchise has no plans to go away in a hurry. 

One of the most interesting upcoming things in the Walking Dead universe is Tales of the Walking Dead, an anthology series that eschews the franchise's traditional plot arcs and focuses on stand-alone, character-driven episodes. This is a delicious concept for various reasons. Not only does it allow the makers to potentially give focus to interesting characters whose arcs were relegated to the sidelines for one reason or another, but this novel approach can also offer welcome extra depth to some of the franchise's most beloved characters — as well as a chance to spend some more time with them, of course.  

Well, a version of them, anyway. Though Tales of the Walking Dead will in all likelihood feature characters that you know and love, The Walking Dead chief content officer Scott Gimple has revealed that the show might very well depict them in a light that you've never even considered. 

The Walking Dead and its companion series have certain tonal differences, but in the end, they're all post-apocalyptic survival drama shows with the occasional horror element mixed in. Knowing this, it's easy to assume that Tales of the Walking Dead would be more of the same. According to Gimple, though, nothing could be further from the truth. In a new interview with Emmy Magazine (via ComicBook.com), he revealed that the anthology series will actually be a pretty bold concept that tinkers with different formats and genres. 

"Some [episodes] will be horror stories, some will be black comedy, some will be adventures," said Gimple. "Some might use animation. We could have music-driven episodes." That's right: There might be a cartoon episode of Negan's (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) adventures, or a musical episode focusing on Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Carol (Melissa McBride). 

What's more, the show has no set cast and it looks at various points in time, which means that the episodes can easily feature characters who are long dead in the main series. As Gimple put it, there will be "different time periods in the apocalypse [and] different kinds of characters [...] some episodes [will] have one character and maybe a lot of dead people."

This is all pretty interesting, especially considering that The Walking Dead Holiday Special recently teased that the Governor (David Morrissey) might be part of the comeback plans. It's probably fair to assume that if he indeed returns, the genre of his episode won't be comedy.