Before ‘Walking,’ ‘Fear’ came calling
Prequel to AMC’s hit will ‘slow-burn’ the apocalypse
The Walking Dead’s new companion series will back up from post-apocalyptic to the earthshattering apocalypse itself.
The original series picked up when Georgia lawman Rick Grimes wakes from a shooting-induced coma, a month or so after zombies have begun stalking the living. Fear the Walking Dead, which premieres on AMC in late summer, will open when the world is about to change, as people find they must deal with the growing scourge of the undead.
“We have a window into the fall of society and the rise of the apocalypse. We get to see what Rick missed, but we’re doing so through the lens of a highly dysfunctional, fractured family,” executive producer Dave Erickson ( Sons of Anarchy) says of the six-episode first season.
Fear, set in a different place but the same zombie-ridden world as Dead, focuses on a blended family in eastern L.A. Travis (Cliff Curtis), a teacher, is a divorced father who starts anew with guidance counselor Madison (Kim Dickens), mother of Nick and Alicia. Travis wants his exwife, Liza (Elizabeth Rodriguez), and his son, Chris, to accept that he’s living with Madison.
“Travis wants to make things right and fix things, even when that seems impossible. Madison is somewhat more pragmatic and has a deeper understanding of things as they unravel. That creates some interesting tension and conflict in what is a very strong relationship,” Erickson says.
Fear will ease into the cataclysm. “We wanted to slow-burn the apocalypse and let our characters have some breathing room to establish them in their day-today lives,” says Erickson, who created the series with Dead creator Robert Kirkman.
The characters eventually confront the fallout of what a news announcer calls “a strange virus.”
Whereas the catastrophe is explained to Rick in Dead, “we get to see our characters stumble through (understanding) that process as walkers begin to emerge,” says Erickson, who adds characters will come up with their own term for what Dead calls “walkers.” “Our infected look more human. They haven’t decayed for over a month.”
Unlike police officers Rick and Shane in Dead, Fear characters are “ill-prepared. If and when they deal with guns, they’re true novices,” Erickson says. .
Crossover stories are not planned for Dead and Fear, which has been picked up for two seasons, and viewers can come to the new series without having seen the original, Erickson says.
“There’s something lovely when you have two elements in a larger mythology and they collide at some point, but there’s no plan to do that right now.”