‘The Walking Dead’ and a … crime procedural suggestion?

Here’s a thought that may shock you, and also send a chill down the spine of NBC network executives: They apparently only wanted “The Walking Dead” if they could turn it into a murder-of-the-week procedural.

This is one of the more entertaining revelations that came out of a conversation that executive producer Gale Ann Hurd had at the Edinburgh International TV Festival recently, as she reflected on some of the time that she and original showrunner Frank Darabont were pitching the show before AMC eventually snatched it up. Per Variety, Hurd noted that at one point, NBC also questioned whether or not there had to be zombies in it at all.

We of course do want to give NBC a ton of grief for this just because some of their commentary on it is so funny, but at the same time we’ll offer them a little bit of sympathy in that sense: Every network out there has made some mistakes passing on shows that became hits somewhere else. For example, HBO and FX each said no to “Breaking Bad,” and NBC also opted against “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” before it moved to Netflix.

For those of you wanting some actual scoop on what’s coming up, let’s turn the floor over to Hurd on Negan:

“In this new season Negan is the gamechanger, and whatever we did [in terms of killing a character off] someone was going to be unhappy… so we promised we will be picking up where that left off; we are not going to draw it out.”

Ultimately, we figure that there are many other mysteries and storylines that will make themselves apparent beyond the premiere, but because of the super-secret nature of what happens with Negan, we haven’t had a chance to figure that out yet.

If you do want to get some other news when it comes to “The Walking Dead,” be sure to head over here! Also, sign up over here to score some other TV news on everything we cover via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: AMC.)