The Walking Dead extends Season 10 by 6 episodes, sets 'World Beyond' spinoff for October

The Walking Dead is old hat at this Comic-Con thing now, having passed the decade mark last year. However, this is the first time the zombie franchise has weathered a viral pandemic, meaning that even its AMC antics explored new ground at its virtual San Diego Comic-Con @ Home panel.

This time, its focus was on the standalone episode "A Certain Doom," which was detached from the latest season thanks to coronavirus production complications. The ex-finale is now a special bridging the gap between seasons — and the current 10th season is getting a six-episode extension in early 2021, before the series properly moves on to Season 11.

Moderated by Talking Dead host Chris Hardwick, the panel featured TWD chief content officer Scott M. Gimple, showrunner and executive producer Angela Kang, executive producer Greg Nicotero (who also directed "A Certain Doom"), and stars Norman Reedus, Melissa McBride, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Lauren Cohan, Josh McDermitt, Seth Gilliam, Ross Marquand, Khary Payton, and Paola Lazaro.

In The Walking Dead episode 1016, "A Certain Doom," the Whisperer War nears its end. Fans will get to see the episode on Sunday, Oct. 4 at 9 PM ET - and right afterwards will be able to watch the premiere of new spinoff series The Walking Dead: World Beyond. A mega-episode of Talking Dead will follow the undead evening to unpack the proceedings.

You can watch the full panel below for all the details:

The panel showed off the first few minutes of the finale, and the gathering of characters looking to combat the forces of evil that've been crowding the survivors that fans know and love. Kang then gave an update on the future of the flagship series. "The writers room for Season 11 has been going remotely for the past few months," she said, though noting that they "haven't been able to start production."

"We'll get back to work as soon as we safely can and we will not be airing Season 11 episodes this year as we normally would in October, but we're excited to announce an extended Season 10," Kang said. "There will be six extra episodes to follow the finale and those will run in early 2021 if all goes well. We're working on those now."

So basically, the current arc will end with the long-awaited finale this fall. Then the plan is to drop a half-season-sized run to bookend Season 10 in early 2021, and eventually a full-on Season 11 (hopefully) later in 2021. A bit unorthodox, but hey, that's life in a pandemic.

With regards to the upcoming dynamic between Negan and Maggie in that forthcoming eleventh season, Kang explained that despite Negan having been on quite a journey recently, "Maggie's coming in and she hasn't seen any of that." That's gonna be a shock for those two characters - and one that fans are gonna love to see.

The Walking Dead’s “A Certain Doom," World Beyond, and Talking Dead will hit AMC on Oct. 4.