I finally watched the pilot of AMC's The Walking Dead this morning. And I am incredibly impressed. It felt like I was watching way more than just television. The show has a very cinematic quality, probably due to the directing of Frank Darabont (director of The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile). It also comes off as more than just a show about zombies; adding in all of the emotional story lines about people surviving in a post-apocalyptic world will help garner more of an audience than just zombie fans.
The pilot fared really well in ratings, especially since it was competing with the World Series, and the fact that it premiered on Halloween (which also probably helped it...). It premiered at number 3 for cable viewing for the week. It scored a 3.7 HH rating, with 5.3 million viewers, making it AMC's highest original series premiere, and the highest premiere for any cable show this year. The series has been highly critically acclaimed, and will hopefully continue to do well. TV By the Numbers says "it could go down nearly two full ratings points with adults 18-49 and still be AMC’s best-rated show."
I can see the resemblance of this to LOST, and see it gaining a huge following, I just hope it doesnt turn into LOST (to me LOST felt like a soap opera, and immediately "lost" me after the second season)... Zombies have always been huge in film (Night of the Living Dead, Dead Alive, Fido, Residsent Evil 1,2,3,4, 28 Days and 28 Days Later, ZombieLand, Dawn of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead... just to name a few) but there hasnt been a successful tv show about zombies... at least in recent memory or from what I have seen... It will be exciting to see how the creators of this will keep it from getting old and too redundant... and keep it going for hopefully more than one season
ReplyDeleteYou have a point with the loyal audience fanbase. There are fans of this stuff, and they are the ones who will undoubtedly tune in every week. Let's just hope there are enough fans in the end to keep it going. I have not actually watched it yet.
ReplyDeleteAre these episodes on any websites for people to view? If so, send me a link because I missed the first two episodes...
ReplyDeletei know the pilot is on amctv.com. as for the second episode... i'm just going to download it, because i missed it too.
ReplyDeleteI was super excited about this show before it started, and i am still excited there is a zombie show on tv, but i wish i liked the show a bit more.
ReplyDeleteI think people will stick to watching it because it is what it is. But i found myself getting very frustrated with the main characters.
for a world full of zombies, it seemed unrealistic.
I am interested in watching all of the episodes though.
I didn't know about this show before I heard about it in class. I think I'm going to start watching this because of the mostly good buzz and who doesn't love zombies, right? It's a risky move, how long can a show about zombies last? I know Zombieland was suppose to be a TV series but it worked well in a movie format. So I'd say I'm a little skeptical about how long it will last but am excited that AMC is trying something new.
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