Ok WALKING DEAD fans, we have some good news and some bad. Never quite sure which you’re meant to dish out first in these situations… I’ll toss a coin…

Heads.

The good news! AMC have announced that the season 2 opening episode will be in the extended, 90 minute format, ala season 1. Awesome.

The bad. AMC have also revealed the season will be split, taking a 10 week break after episode 7 and returning on February 12th. Considerably less awesome. These breaks always manage to throw off the momentum of the narrative (see LOST season 3 and BATTLESTAR season 4 for two of the best examples). And even if you’re waiting for the box set and think this won’t affect you, think again. We guarantee AMC will separate the home video releases into those hideous split Volume monstrosities (a massive bugbear of mine), making the more consumer savvy amongst you wait even longer for the ‘complete’ season box set later on in the year.

So, admittedly we’ve had worse news in the past – Darabont’s firing being the major one of course – but it’s still disappointing that AMC are clearly concentrating too much on the financial end of things rather than the quality of the show itself.

Bummer, huh? No worries, I lied earlier when I said we had good and bad news. We’ve also got ‘mildly exciting’ news also… well, for fans familiar to the comic book series at least. Turns out new showrunner Glenn Mazzara’s favourite character from the source material is The Governor, and that he’s already told his network bosses that he’s “dying to meet” the character! Could we be seeing him on the show sooner than we thought? It’s looking likely!

THE WALKING DEAD return to our screens Sunday October 16th.

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