‘The Walking Dead’ Lets Go Of Writing Staff, May Not Return Until Next October

In a somewhat surprising move, it seems AMC’s breakout hit series The Walking Dead has decided to let go of its writing staff. In addition, it is still debatable if the series will hire a new staff for the second season. Instead, series Exec. Producer Frank Darabont may decide to proceed without a writing staff and work with freelancers and/or write the second season’s thirteen episodes himself.

While this may seem like an odd decision given the fact that the show has been so successful, it’s not that hard to believe. After all Darabont wrote two of the first six episodes himself and comic book creator Robert Kirkman wrote one as well. The others were written by freelancers and then reportedly rewritten by Darabont. So it would seem the writing staff wasn’t doing that much work anyway.

No final decision on this has reportedly been made but it would appear Darabont and AMC have some time to figure it out given that the network may wait to bring the show back until next year during Halloween. So that means we may end up having to wait almost a year for the show to return. Plenty of time for Darabont, Kirkman and some freelance writers to crank out thirteen episodes.

I don’t know what bothers me more that the show let go of its writing staff or that it won’t be back, potentially, until next October. Both seem like questionable decisions with the waiting almost a year seemingly the worse one. Still, this may open up opportunities for writers to get their stuff read so I’m all for that. Guess I’ll polish up that Walking Dead spec script and send it on over.

Do these sound like bad ideas to anyone else? Sound off in the comments.