The Walking Dead holds huge mass appeal. With the season 5 finale, aired back in March, hitting 15.8 million UK viewers. Its not about horror and gore, though it is not above it. It is about survival and the difficult decisions characters are faced with, each situation more impossible than the last. I love it.

It is what I find most interesting about the ‘Zombie Genre’. In the introduction to the first volume of the comics, the format in which the Walking Dead Universe was born, Robert Kirkman says “I want to explore how people deal with extreme situations and how these change them.” In my view, the TV series definitely achieves this.

However, for us TV series fans we have more to look forward to than just season 6. Come September AMC Global will be airing the first season of ‘Fear the Walking Dead’. This will be set in sunny L.A. as opposed to rural Georgia. However it will also be rewinding time. Taking us back in time to when poor old Rick Grimes was abandoned to his coma, and will be looking at how the ‘undead apocalypse’ unfolds. Robert Kirkman also stated in the introduction  to the first volume of the comics that he felt “Good zombie movies show us how messed up we are, they make us question our station in society… and our societies station in the world”. I have a feeling this is going to be relevant to this spin off as we get to see modern society crumble in the face of the walkers!

I have high hopes for Fear the Walking Dead. The format of dropping different characters into different locations and time periods within the Walking Dead Universe has worked before. Just look at the fantastic game, TellTale’s The Walking Dead. I look forward to watching the first episode with an open mind and a small dram of Jura.