Fanboys Anonymous

This has been rumored for some time now, and it's officially a reality. Ever since The Walking Dead crushed all ratings and expectations during its inaugural season, there have been rumors and Internet chatter about AMC looking to expand the universe with spinoffs taking place in the same world. Now it's happening, as AMC has ordered a pilot episode for the yet-unnamed series. This is super awesome news, depending on how they go with it.

If they coordinate storylines, perhaps showing another group of Zombie Apocalypse survivors in another part of the world and how they relate to what the original cast is doing, it could be great. But then how do you distinguish the new cast from the core group with Rick? My fear is that they will simply attempt to rehash the same kinds of situations, with a weekly zombie attack/human drama story, and it will be nothing but a cheap clone.

How do they give us more of the same but make it different enough to matter? They need to open up the rest of the world, maybe not go so far as some remote corner of the globe and what's going on there [it boggles the mind to consider the endless possibilities here, and thus the confusion inherent therein], but rather, something deeper about the outbreak itself and a possible endgame.

I don't know the comics. I don't know what happens at the end or if they ever discover what happened to cause the Zombie Apocalypse in the first place. However, my hope is that the end of The Walking Dead will not be a cop-out, à la Lost, and we get no answers. Please, please, please, don't do this, AMC! Finish the story and don't leave us hanging.

Will they drop the ball and give us endless seasons that go nowhere? An ineffectual, meaningless spinoff series that simply compounds the mysteries rather than answers questions? Sound off below.