'Law & Order: Zombie Unit'? How NBC Would Have Done 'The Walking Dead'

According to one of the series' producers, The Walking Dead could easily have been a crime-of-the-week procedural in which a crime-fighting duo solved a series of zombie crimes. We have AMC to thank for sparing us from that fate and giving us instead a show that revolves around a series of who-dies-this-time cliffhangers.

A report in Variety cites TWD executive producer Gale Anne Hurd, who was speaking at a masterclass at the Edinburgh International TV Festival. Hurd says that NBC was interested when the series' creators pitched TWD to the network way back in the beginning. The NBC execs, however, didn't like the idea of an ongoing storyline and suggested, instead, an episodic show in which the zombie-fighters completed a new case each week. The series apparently would have followed the crime procedural model that, at the time, made up a large portion of NBC's prime-time programming.

Fortunately, the NBC deal didn't work out, and AMC gave the series the freedom to stay true to its comic-book roots. The rest is history, as TWD went on to become the hottest series on TV.

While the idea of a zombie procedural might seen ridiculous at first glance, that is essentially the premise of The CW's iZombie. That tongue-in-cheek series, though, is night-and-day different from the deadly serious TWD, and we can be thankful that Rick Grimes and crew weren't forced into that mold.