TV Talk at TCA: More ‘Dead’ on ABC, AMC

PASADENA, Calif. – The dead live with the return of comedy “Not Dead Yet” on ABC and “The Walking Dead” franchise expanding yet again on AMC.

‘The Walking Dead’

It’s easy to be cynical and suggest AMC has gone to its undead well one, two or three too many times (technically this is spin-off No. 6). And yet, last summer’s France-set-and-filmed “The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon” was pretty good, offering a new locale and characters.

The latest endeavor, “The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live” (9 p.m. Feb. 25, AMC), brings back original series star Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes who’s in search of his love, Michonne (Danai Gurira).

Adding the love story element gives this iteration a different flavor from past “Dead” shows. But it’s surprising to see it set in Philadelphia, which seems too close geographically to another spin-off, Manhattan-set “The Walking Dead: Dead City.”

But “Dead” executive producer Scott Gimple said he’s always approached the shows with an eye toward potential future storytelling, including nudging the characters of Rick and Michonne toward one another in season two of the original show.

“I was trying to just build little, tiny atoms of kindred souls and I didn’t know if I’d be able to tell that story,” Gimple said during a press conference as part of AMC’s portion of the Television Critics Association winter 2024 press tour. “I do have dreams of merging this all together and I have laid little breadcrumbs towards that, but you never know exactly when and how because of a variety of reasons.”

After Lincoln left the original “Walking Dead” in its ninth season, the announced plan was to revisit the character in a big-screen movie. When the streaming era hit, those ideas were reconfigured into this series, which was co-created by Gimple, Gurira and Lincoln.

“This was really honing in on when love is the driving force, when it’s the propelling thing in a show, when it’s actually the thing that’s making the plot move, what does that look like?” Gurira said.

McCandless native Greg Nicotero, a special effects and “Dead” franchise veteran, was more day-to-day and hands-on with “Daryl Dixon” but he also has an executive producer credit on “The Ones Who Live.”

“I was bugging him for all sorts of things all throughout the process,” Gimple said during a one-on-one conversation at AMC’s TCA cocktail party. “All the walkers stuff came from his crew and from his mind. We collaborated on how to execute a lot of these ideas or he took the ball and ran with it.”

“The Ones Who Live” opens with burning zombies and a special effect involving a lead human character that Nicotero had a hand in designing.

“A lot of that stuff was always me bringing it to him and him making my wishes come true and definitely improving upon them or throwing in ideas of his own,” Gimple said. “In episode three, there’s an incredibly disgusting moment that Greg and his crew created. One of the journalists we were talking to today said she had to stop drinking her water because she was so disgusted.”

‘Not Dead Yet’

Wednesday’s second season premiere of ABC comedy “Not Dead Yet” (8:30 p.m. Wednesday, WTAE-TV), about newspaper obituary writer Nell (Gina Rodriguez, “Jane the Virgin”), who sees the ghosts of those she writes about, introduced a new series regular.

Brad Garrett (“Everybody Loves Raymond”) joined the cast as SoCal Independent owner Duncan Rhodes, who has a frosty relationship with his daughter, the newspaper’s editor, Lexi (Lauren Ash, “Superstore”).

During a Wednesday night visit to the show’s set on the Fox Studio lot, Ash acknowledged there were multiple references to Lexi’s father in the first season, including the line, “My siblings and I had to compete for who got a goodnight hug.”

“I had never really thought about it in terms of envisioning a specific actor,” Ash said. “It was more of a feel and a vibe. And I feel like they just nailed it. There was nobody better and he’s amazing.”

Ash’s character also got a boost in this week’s season premiere when Lexi locked lips with Edward (Rick Glassman), Nell’s roommate.

“At the end of last season in the finale, we wrote some back-and-forth barbs between the two of them that then Rick and Lauren took and made more of them,” said executive producer David Windsor (“This is Us,” “The Real O’Neals”). “We were like, ‘Oh my god, this is so funny. How do we get more of this from them? And what would make that unique relationship even more awkward? Let’s have them sleep together.’”

Ash said the relationship adds more opportunities to complicate Nell’s life, generating more comedy.

“It’s really putting Nell’s character in a living, breathing hell because she’s got this boss at work who she’s trying to navigate and then that boss is now in her very close, personal space,” Ash said.

Rodriguez, who was pregnant during filming on the show’s first season, brought her son, Charlie, to the press conference along with her husband, actor Joe LoCicero. She said the production has made it easier to be a working mother with weekly playdates for the children of cast and crew members. Post-pregnancy, she’s also gotten to do more physical comedy in season two.

“We’ve been getting a lot of physical comedy out of the actors,” said executive producer Dean Holland (“Parks and Recreation”). “It has really been elevated the season.”

Season two guest stars will include Wendie Malick, Rob Corddry, Chelsea Handler and 92-year-old Marla Gibbs (“227”), the real-life mother of “Not Dead Yet” series regular Angela Gibbs, who plays Cricket, owner of a wine bar.

“It is a privilege to do what you love for a living. But when you get to work with someone who’s an icon like my mother, that’s a blessing,” Angela Gibbs said. “What’s so cute is we live right next to each other, so when I go to visit her at night, she’s watching ‘Everybody Loves Raymond.’ She loves Brad. And then when I told Brad who my mother was, he was like, ‘I love your mother,’ so I can’t wait to see the two of you together.”