Writing Staff Fired From AMC’s Walking Dead

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What’s the best way to celebrate the success of AMC’s adaptation of The Walking Dead, which finishes its first season this weekend? If you said “By firing all the writers and relying on freelancers to write the second season,” then it’s very possible that you’re series showrunner and executive producer Frank Darabont, who is reported to have done that very thing (Officially, AMC has only confirmed “changes to the writing staff,” but has not commented further).

The lack of writing staff is commonplace in other countries – The BBC’s Doctor Who is written by freelancers and overseen by a showrunner, for example – but almost unknown in the US, and there are already rumblings that Darabont’s move may run afoul of the Writer’s Guild of America. With a second season more than twice as long as the first, it’ll be interesting to see how this move (if real) affects the writing of the series – Will Darabont have time to oversee each episode’s creation, as well as act as producer and director?

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