AMC are all about the spin-offs at the moment. Mad Men was their first piece of original programming, a venture into a brave new world from which they have never looked back. Since then they also produced The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad, two of the biggest critical and commercial hits in modern television history. Like Mad Men, though, Breaking Bad recently finished and The Walking Dead almost certainly can't go on forever. Considering that the original shows they've since piloted from crime remake The Killing to technology period drama Halt And Catch Fire have almost universally been failures, and quickly cancelled. So they've instead been going down the spin-off route, with Breaking Bad being continued with prequel Better Call Saul and a Walking Dead sister series beginning later this year. They almost did the same with Mad Men, planning to spin either Peggy who's basically the main character anyway or Don's daughter Sally into their own series, the latter in the modern day.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
