'Fear The Walking Dead' Producers Reveal When The Companion Series Will Catch Up With 'The Walking Dead' Timeline

AMC’s upcoming companion series “Fear the Walking Dead” is less than one month from premiering, yet the biggest news coming from the show is its ending. Recently, the producers revealed how much time will have passed in “The Walking Dead” prequel universe.

It was previously announced that “Fear The Walking Dead” would cover the time period just before Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) woke up from his coma in the first episode of “The Walking Dead.” The characters in the Los Angeles-based story will witness the normal world that they grew up in slowly destroyed by the oncoming zombie apocalypse. Although the show will not reveal the cause of the zombie outbreak, it will show its principal characters deal with the crumbling of society and what that means for their unique dynamic.

Speaking at the Television Critics Association press tour, producers for “Fear the Walking Dead” revealed how much time the first season of the new show will cover relative to its companion series, “The Walking Dead.”

“By the end of Season 1, we definitely know the world has changed, but we’re not at the same place where Rick woke up,” executive producer David Erickson said, via Entertainment Weekly. “There’s still a window of time, we’ll have some real estate left. Rick’s coma was about four to five weeks. If you track our story, we probably go three weeks over the course of our first season. There is a time that may come that we catch up, and there may be a season where we do a major time cut. The thinking right now in Season 1 and the writers’ room for Season 2 isn’t about how do we intersect them how or catch up with the original show?”

The producers have said time and again that “Fear the Walking Dead” won’t be an attempt to weave into the storyline of “The Walking Dead” at any time in the foreseeable future. However, the news that the show’s first season, composed of six episodes, will only take place over the course of a very eventful two or three weeks was a surprise for some fans. As Deadline points out, the show can afford the slow burn given that, prior to the first episode even premiering, AMC has ordered a second season of “Fear the Walking Dead” comprised of 15 episodes - more than double that of Season 1.

What do you think of the slow ticking clock that “Fear the Walking Dead” has set for itself? Comment below or tweet your thoughts to @TylerMcCarthy.