AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead companion series will restart the zombie apocalypse in a few months’ time, but may not resemble the blood-spurting thriller we’re used to. New comments from its showrunner Dave Erickson and creator Robert Kirkman suggest that Fear the Walking Dead will traffic much more in family drama, scaling back the walkers to look more freshly human as well.

Speaking with a number of outlets, both Erickson and Kirkman echoed the idea that Fear the Walking Dead would loosely follow the time between Rick Grimes’ accident and waking up in the apocalypse, at least over the course of its first season. Set through the prism of a dysfunctional family unit (Cliff Curtis and Kim Dickens’ characters merging their families), the series looks to explore the early chaos and anxiety of people slowly confronting a disease that turns still human-looking friends and family into ravenous monsters:

Says Erickson to TVLine of the show’s walkers, whose appearances will be modified to reflect an earlier timeline:

It’ll differ in so many ways… [It’s about] the anxiety and anticipation. We don’t go, for lack of a better term, full-zombie. There’s a bit more of a slow-burn to the story. We don’t get to a point where we’re actually in a full-blown apocalypse until much later in the show. [Fellow EP] Robert [Kirkman] wanted to really dwell on what it’s like to [commit] a violent act — especially in our world, because it’s so early, and our walkers are fresher and far more human. It’s [emotionally] difficult to kill them, even when somebody’s coming after you… In terms of emotional tension, when we put one of our characters through a moment where they have to commit some brutality to defend themselves or others, they’ll suffer for it.

Echoed Kirkman to IGN of the undead:

They’re not going to be as decayed, and they’re not going to be as monstrous, which is going to make the violence in the show and the different things that happen that much more startling. Because we’re going to be dealing with a much more human walker. So while there is going to be a tremendous amount of paranoia and psychological trauma, I think there’s not going to be any loss of zombie action or excitement in this show. We’ll be bringing in the best of both worlds.

Thus far of Fear The Walking Dead, The Last Airbender star Cliff Curtis leads the cast as divorced teacher Sean Cabrera, alongside Gone Girl star Kim Dickens as high school guidance counselor Nancy. Also cast in the role of her two children from a previous marriage are Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince star Frank Dillane and AMC pilot Galyntine star Alycia Debnam Carey. Orange is the New Black star Elizabeth Rodriguez and Mercedes Mason also round out the ensemble.

The companion series to AMC’s monster smash will follow its predecessor with a six-episode first season, and a second season of regular length already ordered for 2016. Additionally, while the companion series will begin as a prequel to the zombie apocalypse, creator Robert Kirkman has expressed that the two series will eventually catch up to one another. Walking Dead executive producers Kirkman, Gale Anne Hurd and David Alpert will all take part in the new L.A.-set series, while Sons of Anarchy and Low Winter Sun vet Dave Erickson will both co-write and executive produce, Adam Davidson having directed the pilot.

You can check out the latest videos below, and get ready to Fear the Walking Dead all over again by its unspecified summer 2015 premiere!

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