It’s fair to say that The Walking Dead‘s seventh season was the most controversial run of the smash-hit post-apocalyptic drama to date. Though it still has its fans, the shocking opening episode and the slow, protracted pace of the rest of the season rubbed many people the wrong way. The final few episodes ramped up the interest again, however, by positioning the people of Alexandria, the Kingdom and Hilltop against Negan and his Saviors.
For season 8, then, things are sure to get a whole lot more eventful and dramatic. At least, that’s what we’ve been hearing for the past few months now and it’s something which creator Robert Kirkman has re-iterated as well this weekend, during a TCA panel when he said the following:
“It’s a little early, but we all know it’s the all-out war story. So in Season 8 we’re trying to do a more fast-paced season, a more action-packed season, really focusing on momentum, and we feel like over the first seven seasons we kind of set all of the characters into place, and now it’s time to break them to a certain extent.”
Continuing on, Kirkman spoke about how they plan to keep fans engaged this season, noting that this next batch of episodes will be “breaking a lot of new ground.”
“One of the things that really keeps The Walking Dead going is that every season feels like a different show and as we start to show more promotional material and you guys get to see episodes you’ll see this is another continuation of that, this is a very fresh take on the world of The Walking Dead and we’re going to be breaking a lot of new ground this season.”
The Walking Dead season 8 shuffles onto AMC on October 22nd. It’ll arrive on the undead heels of Fear The Walking Dead‘s season 3 finale, so zombie fans needn’t worry about a lack of content this Halloween season.