Hey youtubers it’s Charlie and they just announced the main characters for the Spin
Off Show which turns out, is something of a prequel.
Not in the way you expect, but I’ll explain that too.
Only 6 people were announced so it’s likely they’ll continue to add people to the pilot
before they shoot.
The fact that they’re this far into the process means there’s a chance that if they
can finish it by the time the regular show comes back for break.
The network can make a decision and put the show into production for a fall 2015 debut
if they want.
That doesn’t mean it will go down that way, it just means if everything stays on track
and they shoot it in time, we might get to watch it as early as Comic Con 2015.
I’ll talk more about that after I explain the characters.
And my weekly walking dead giveaway starts now, all you have to do to enter is be a subscriber
and leave a comment.
So there are 6 people total and all these character descriptions are from Robert Kirkman’s
mouth.
Number 1 is Sean Cabrera.
He’s A Latino male in his early 40s.
He’s a good man trying to do right by everyone in his life.
I’m choosing to think of him as the Rick of the Group for now.
Or maybe a cross between Rick and Shane, if Shane hadn’t of gone completely nuts.
Number 2 is Cody Cabrera.
Sean’s whip-smart and rebellious teenage son.
Known as the angriest kid in town.
I’m going to think of him as a younger version of Daryl who’s got Glenn’s Brain.
He has “Mischief Managed” written all over him.
Number 3 is Nancy Tompkins.
She’s a thirtysomething single mom with two kids.
Nancy looks like the girl next door, but there’s an edge to her.
I’m thinking of her as a cross between Andrea if she had a child just because she was mid-30s
and a season 1 season 2 Carol.
Carol is about 10 years older than what Nancy’s going to be, but she’s like the template
Walking Dead Tiger Mom.
Nancy sounds like she’s going to be like that, soft and caring like Andrea but capricious
enough that she’ll swing to Carol levels of badassery when pushed.
Number 4 is Nick Tompkins.
He’s Nancy’s screwed up teenage son.
He’s too old to stay at home but too scared to flee.
I’ll explain the flee part when I explain the time period this all takes place.
He kind of sounds like an early version of Bob, screwed up teenager who’s too chicken
to leave home has “Future Alcoholic” written all over him.
Number 5 is Ashley Tompkins.
She’s Nancy’s mostly-level headed teenage daughter.
Her ambition is in direct proportion to her older brother’s failures.
She loves her mom, but it’s time to get out of Dodge.
From the character description she sounds exactly like what Beth is going to become
in season 5.
Or what she started to become at the end of season 4.
Much more ambitious about her own life.
Beth got really pissed at Daryl for just accepting their fate.
She was a big call to action for him.
And it sounds like this new Ashley person will be that for this new group of people.
The last one, Number 6 is Andrea Chapman.
I know there was already an Andrea on the main show.
But Kirkman explained that they have no relation to each other and using the same name isn’t
meant to be an easter egg or anything.
She’s described as a somewhat wilted flower child, who has retreated to the outskirts
of the city to recover from a Horrible Marriage.
Actually reading her story she really does kind of sound like Andrea if she had Carol’s
life, pre-Apocalypse.
There’s a lot we can say about this group.
First, they’re two single parent families one with a dad, one with a mom.
You can make all the Brady Bunch jokes you want.
But it does seem like they’re making the spin off a family based group.
At least at the beginning.
This is a big change from the main show that threw a bunch of strangers together with a
few scattered families.
These people will be much more of a family unit.
I think the hope is that by starting these characters out in a much more intimate situation.
We the audience will connect with them faster.
I do tend to feel closer to a bonded group of characters.
On the other end of that spectrum.
Rick just acknowledged Daryl as his brother.
It took them four years to really become a family.
The spin off is just speeding that up.
There’s also the fact that you have a teenage girl and a teenage boy in the group, and two
single women with one single adult man.
So you can start the ‘shipping right here.
I’ll be interested to see if they go straight for a love triangle with the adults and romeo
juliet the teenagers.
Young Love in the age of apocalypse.
I guess that kind of makes it sound like the X-Men sequel.
Which is just another badass movie I can’t wait to see.
Supposedly part of the reason they chose to go with Older Teenagers was because of all
the trouble they had shooting with Chandler Riggs when he was younger.
Child labor laws make it so that you only get to shoot with kids for like half a normal
day.
If they’re really young.
Like Carl in Season 1, you can only shoot with them for a few hours per day.
Normal shoots can sometimes take up to 18 hours.
None of the characters are from the comics and there’s no word on where this would
be set.
Which city they’d be in.
Now next big question: I know you’re asking when does this take place.
It’s a prequel right?
It’s supposedly going to take place in the early days of the outbreak.
It will chronicle the attempts to contain the virus.
Of Course there will be massive groups of walkers, but the popluation won’t be nearly
as decimated.
Society won’t have been destroyed but walkers will start popping up everywhere.
So we’ll be seeing the world react to them for the first time.
Robert Kirkman is doing most of the writing with the help of his partner at Skybound,
Dave Erickson.
Erickson will be the official showrunner.
Robert Kirkman is way too busy to run a show.
And he still has to help write the main show too.
The whole thing will borrow a lot of the behind the scenes talent of the main show,
but the difference is, from a production standpoint.
Robert Kirkman’s Skybound company is in charge.
So he stands to make a lot more money from this show than from the main show if it’s
successful.
Frank Darabont developed the main show originally with Kirkman’s help.
At the time, Kirkman didn’t have the ability to produce the show himself, so AMC did a
lot of the heavy lifting.
Next big question, when can we watch it?
As I said earlier, they’re casting now.
So if they can finish the pilot by the spring next year.
Unless there’s some huge catastrophe, AMC can order it to series and they can shoot
episodes for a Fall 2015 release.
That’s if they decide to air the series alongside the main
show.
They could always choose to air it during another part of the year.
And there’s been no word on how many episodes per season they’re envisioning.
It’s just a pilot right now, so we probably won’t know more till they air that pilot.
If you can make it to San Diego Comic Con next summer, there’s a 99 percent chance
they’ll screen the pilot there.
Unless something really horrible goes wrong.
It will be canon with the main series.
I think it’s around 2009-2010 where we are
right now.
Kirkman said he’d never reveal the specific year the outbreak started, other than it was
within a couple years of the start of the comics.
Which was about 2003-2004.
I guess you could say the spin off will take place around 2-3 years before season 1 of
the main show.
Let me know what you think about the characters they announced and what kind of a villain
do you think we’ll see?
I know it’s not going to be comic book characters, but that doesn’t mean Kirkman won’t borrow
a villain from the comics and give them a different name on the show.
We only have about two more weeks before it comes back.
October 12th.
When it gets here I’ll be doing bonus videos, reviews, Q&As and the weekly giveaway, just
like last year.
So be sure to subscribe to get everything.
I’ll do a couple more bonus videos before then, including the michonne one I keep postponing.
Right now click here for my breakdown of the season 5 trailer and click here for my top
5 crazy Rick Grimes Moments.
Thanks for watching, now let’s all high five and meet up later for Gotham