“We’ll be going out on ships but mostly we’ll be based where they interacted with the townspeople, with politicians, with the women of ill repute,” Hurd said at the Saturn Awards, where she accepted The Walking Dead’s award for Best TV Presentation from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror.

It’s FX, the network of The Shield, nip/tuck and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. They picked the baddest pirate port of legend. “This is Port Royal in the late 1600s, early 1700s when it was known as the richest and wickedest city on earth,” Hurd described.

So no funny drunken Disneyfied pirates. “They are not necessarily family friendly but we’re creating a whole world because Port Royal was a port that they all ultimately traveled through.”

Scott Rosenbaum is writing the pilot for Port Royal.

Well, the “no pirates” rule is made to be broken, this time by producers Graham King and Gale Anne Hurd. It’s based on an idea by Hurd, and will be called “Port Royal.” Here be a plot synopsis, matey:

“Set in the late 17th century on the island of Jamaica, the series will chronicle the namesake port’s notorious rise as the ‘richest and wickedest city’ in the new world, and as a self-governing safe haven for cutthroat pirates, corrupt politicians and ruthless merchants.”

Sounds pretty piratey. Hurd might be a familiar name to you, since in addition to producing”The Walking Dead“ for AMC, she was the producer on such classics as The Terminator, Aliens, and Raising Cain. So if anyone can make people want to watch Depp-less pirates, it’s her. (via Deadline)

Hurd has a pedigree in action and sci-fi films, having also been credited on Terminator, Aliens, The Punisher, and The Incredible Hulk. Despite the seemingly large scope of Nameless, Hurd has intimated that that she will go the indie route for financing on this one, saying, “I wouldn’t rule anything out but at this point, the mid-range films are often not financed or made by studios.”

That’s true, but most mid-range films aren’t stories this interesting, made by people with so much success. I wouldn’t be so quick to rule out studio interest, Gale. (THR)

Q: What are you excited to explore in the next season?

Gale Anne Hurd: We had six episodes to set up the world and to introduce the characters and now I think we can go even more deeply into each of our ensemble cast members.

Q: So each one could maybe star in their very own episode?

GAH: Exactly, we’ve had stories that concentrate on one character or another and I think we’ll be seeing a lot more of that this season.

Q: Who have we not heard from enough yet?

GAH: I think there’s still a lot more that we can learn from Daryl, the Norman Reedus character. I think that episodes focusing on Lori played by Sarah Wayne Callies, we’ve got a great triangle between Rick, Laurie and Shane. I have a sneaking suspicion that might be something we’re going to explore even more deeply in the new season.

Q: Do you wish you’d done more than six?

GAH: You know, we barely survived the six so now we’re geared up and we’ve got it dialed in so now we have the energy and I think the right team in place to do 13.

Q: Do you have any new zombie ideas to explore?

GAH: I think we pretty much set up the world of zombies. They’re not insane bolt sprinters. I think Greg Nicotero’s makeup effects are tremendous. We’re here because Stargate was nominated for best supporting visual effects and I think their work is seamless and we’ll be able to give them more to do this season.

I’m endlessly fascinated by zombie apocalypse stories, or any apocalypse stories for that matter. I just love to see the survivors scour the wastelands for supplies. The more supplies they have to gather, the better. There’ve been other post-apocalyptic shows but they didn’t have the “Mad Men” street cred. AMC’s zombie apocalypse show does.

More after the jump…

“The Walking Dead” delivers immediately. Officer Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) driving empty streets finds a wrecked car and truck. We see wreckage, the potential for siphoning gas, (Ohhh, beautiful, beautiful supplies), empty shops, rotting corpses and our first zombie. The first zombie is probably designed to be controversial and shocking. Veteran viewers will see just another zombie but it’s great makeup and a great way to start.

After the opening credits, we flash back to meet the main characters and learn what their issues are, so they can cause internal friction after the zombie outbreak. It’s well done, definitely the kind of “Made Men”-y writing that makes dialogue and relationships feel more compelling (Frank Darabont is responsible for the pilot script).

We meet other officers at a fairly intense police blockade with a good car chase, crash and shootout. By the first commercial, we’re already into the apocalypse and Rick has to explore and piece together what’s happened. Hopefully there will be those silent moments of exploration each week. Even if “The Walking Dead” hits season five, the survivors will have to travel and explore and figure out what happened in each town, right? Please?

The wreckage is magnificent and the buildups to zombie reveals are fantastic. Darabont directed the first episode too. Great shots of stumbling zombies outside, some especially grotesque creatures and plenty of violence. There’s a truly epic zombie horde in the climax. They don’t have to do that every week, but they’ve got what it takes to make circumstances dire.

For novice viewers, the rules of zombies are explained when Rick runs into survivor Morgan Jones (Lennie James) and his son Duane (Adrian Kali Turner). That’s well done too; doesn’t totally spell it out because Morgan already assumes everyone knows how the new world works. James is only listed as a guest star so I doubt we’ll see him regularly, or permanently. It’s late in the first episode before we meet any other survivors. Shane’s with them, and Rick’s wife Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) and son Carl (Chandler Riggs). Their group is already in-fighting, so there’s the final element of great zombie and/or apocalypse movies.

The acting is cable TV quality, which means it’s what movies used to be and certainly more believable than most zombie movies. These people are reacting to the end of the world, but more importantly the end of THEIR worlds, with personal implications for their families. 

“The Walking Dead” seems like everything you’d want in a zombie movie, and we’ll get it week after week on TV. Hopefully subsequent episodes will maintain the quality. Darabont may be a tough act to follow, but he’ll still be supervising. With 13 hours of story per year, instead of just 90 minutes, we can see more zombies, more blockades, more survivor infighting and most importantly, more supplies!