This weekend sees San Diego once again host the world’s biggest comic convention as San Diego Comic Con (or SDCC) takes over the Californian city. As with previous years the weekend is jam-packed with panels for every film and television series imaginable, including everyone’s favourite post-apocalypse show, The Walking Dead.
The series, now into it’s sixth season, ended season five with Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and his group finally finding a temporary sanctuary in gated community, Alexandria. It being The Walking Dead things didn’t stay peaceful for long and soon they resumed fighting and encountering zombies everywhere. The season ended with Rick faced with an old friend, and fans have been dying to see what happens next; we now finally have an air date. The US will get episode one, which will have a feature length ninety minute run time, on Sunday 11th October. The UK will have to wait an additional twenty-four hours as the show will arrive on Fox on Monday 12th October.
October is obviously a long way off, but thankfully the panel included a nice long trailer to tease us further:
The Walking Dead somehow manages to reinvent itself as each season progresses, and from the looks of the trailer, season six is going to be all about the residents of Alexandria accepting (or not) Rick and his group of hardened survivours. The heart of the story will almost certainly be based around the relationship between Rick and his one time acquaintance Morgan which, from the looks of the above, will take a dramatic shift. Show creator Robert Kirkman had this to say about how the dynamic will be explored:
[quote_box_center]”Having Rick and Morgan together, finally again, is a huge deal, and it’s definitely going to be a big part of season 6. Now it’s a very different Rick and a very different Morgan who are going to have a completely different relationship. And it’s the questions of how they’re going to interact, how they’re going to work together – if they’re going to work together – and what comes from those interactions is going to be basically the spine of season six.”[/quote_box_center]
It also appears that the group Morgan escaped from, known simply as ‘the wolves’ we be a big factor of the new run. The group were only glimpsed briefly last series and all we really know about them is that they have a habit of carving a ‘W’ into the foreheads of those they kill.
The trailer also confirms some new faces who may or may not become zombie fodder, these include Straight Outta Compton‘s Corey Hawkins who will play a character called Heath who will be familiar to those who have read the comics, and Cheap Thrills‘ Ethan Embry.
The Walking Dead returns to AMC in the US on 11th October, and a day later on the 12th October for viewers of Fox in the UK.
