The Walking Dead to show airline zombie attack in stand-alone special 

That’s basically what AMC is planning in a highly unusual — if not totally unprecedented — new special that’s set during the time period of the hit drama’s companion series, 

Here’s the plan: EW has exclusively learned AMC is producing a half-hour special that will tell a stand-alone story following a group of passengers facing a walker attack on an airline while in flight. One character who survives that encounter will then join the cast of 

 online web series, but the network never used such content to introduce a new character before they joined the show. The airline attack story will debut online, and will unfold this in chapters that will air during 

’s on-air telecasts. In other words: You’re watching 

, AMC cuts to commercial break, then you get a chapter in the as-yet-untitled stand-alone airline attack drama. 

Beyond that, details are scarce. We assume the flight is headed to Los Angeles, since that’s the setting of 

 (L.A. residents, insert your LAX-is-already-run-by-zombies joke here). Our lingering questions: What’s the stand-alone content called? Who is the new character being introduced and who will play them? (Presumably AMC will be reluctant to release that because that would then reveal which passenger survives.) How many pieces of this interstitial will there be, and across how many 

A plane has been used as a setting for a zombie outbreak before, most memorably during a sequence in the otherwise lackluster 

’s team add new twists into that trapped-group premise. Producers of the special content include Dave Erickson and 

 recently premiered to a record 13.3 million viewers, including three days of DVR playback, making it the biggest series cable debut ever.   

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