The Walking Dead: Dead City

Season 3 confirms the right path forward, moving away from tired formulas and trying something different while also refocusing on the best traits of its leads. The Walking Dead: Dead City is no longer shambling around like a rotting walker. With Season 3, it comes back to life in the best way possible.

Surprisingly, there is enough great storytelling here not only to keep that door open, but actually to inspire a little hope that the next era of “The Walking Dead” might be its best since the flagship’s early days.

If the future of the series is anything like this first season of Dead City, with its recentering of a core group of characters and the strongest story that The Walking Dead has had in years, then there may just be some life to be found in this dead world.

Dead City's new batch of episodes brings in new factions, fresh ideology, and different terrain to traverse, but it's still really for Walking Dead die-hards only. There are still exciting moments here and there, but the most interesting part is just how much of a contrarian punk Hershel's become.

Too much of the healing and forgiveness achieved in their [Lauren Cohan and Jeffrey Dean Morgan's] relationship during The Walking Dead’s final season gets taken back and undone, which makes Dead City feel like an unsatisfying loophole was created around moving their story forward.

“The Walking Dead” shows prior were ensemble dramas that often weaved their narratives across dozens of central characters; the narrative of this six-episode season is more focused, and the better for it. That’s not to say it’s all rainbows, though; if you were tired of the “Walking Dead” formula, “Dead City”’s modest modifications aren’t quite enough to save you.

If you happen to be really tired of the core Walking Dead formula, it’s a long time before you’ll get even a hint of creative rejuvenation — and it really is only a hint, so don’t get your hopes up. If, however, you’re perfectly content to have Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Lauren Cohan back on your TV making zombies go squish ... The Walking Dead: Dead City delivers a barely adulterated version of that formula.

Of the 3 spin off series since the main show ended, this is the one that feels most like a 6 part movie. It’s got a bigger budget and all the high octane set pieces that the main series had, just with a shorter run time and more grounded story. It’s surprisingly good and light on the plot filler that the main series got bogged down with. There’s little side characters or pointless waffling to fill the runtime. It’s worth a watch even if you haven’t watched the walking dead.

An ok spin off from the ever popular main series. Both are decent actors, but the script is lazy and doesn't do enough to warrant anything more than these 6 episodes.

Keeping it down to 6 episodes really helped and as someone who nearly didn't watch due to exhaustion of so many Walking Dead shows I was surprised how much I enjoyed this. Still, just an average TV show. Maggie's character over time just gets worse and more annoying. This would be way better with a story focused more on Negan and Maggie perhaps in just one episode or not in the show at all.

Truly awful. It's like a bingo full house of writing sins, every single episode. A meandering, nonsensical, pathetic waste of potential. These writers should never work in the industry ever again.

There's no reason for this series. The writers have been trying to make a reason for these two to be together. It doesn't make sense. The shows have been boring. The angst been unbelievable. They should have sent any actors to New York instead of these two.