David Zabel

David Zabel has written for television for thirty years. After writing on JAG, Star Trek: Voyager, and Dark Angel, he worked on the NBC medical series ER for the last eight years of its historic run, serving as the series’ showrunner for the final five seasons. He wrote more than 45 episodes of the program and was a recipient of a Prism Award and a Humanitas Prize. Subsequently, Zabel was showrunner and executive producer of ABC’s 2010-11 police series, Detroit 1-8-7. In 2013, he was the executive producer/showrunner for two shows he developed for ABC: Betrayal and Lucky 7. In 2016-17, he co-created and ran Mercy Street, a Civil War-set series that was on PBS for two seasons. He has directed episodes of ER, Detroit 1-8-7, and Betrayal. Recently, he served as the creator, executive producer and showrunner of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, winner of the 2026 Saturn Award for Best Television Presentation. That show’s fourth season will air on AMC/AMC+ in 2027. Zabel is currently developing new series for Netflix, Amazon and AMC.