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Fear The Walking Dead Breaks U.S. Cable Record

ramonmercado

ramonmercado

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Looking forward to this.

Fear the Walking Dead breaks US cable record

The spin-off series to The Walking Dead has had the biggest premiere in US cable TV history.

AMC's 90-minute series opener of Fear the Walking Dead delivered a record-breaking 10.1 million viewers, the network said.

Set in Los Angeles, the prequel focuses on a group of characters in the early days of the zombie apocalypse.

The first season will run for six episodes and will return for a second season of 15 episodes in 2016.

Sunday's opening episode beat The Walking Dead's premiere viewing figures of 5.35 million in 2010.

It delivered 6.3 million adults in the 18-to-49 demographic which is favoured by advertisers. The previous record in the same demographic was AMC's Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul - 4.4 million - earlier this year.

Reviewing the first episode, Variety's Brian Lowry said: "For Walking Dead fans, Fear does tap into a fertile vein, since the earlier show's main protagonist, Rick, slept through humanity's fall in a coma, leaving flashbacks to putty in only some of the gaps."

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-34050124
 
This isn't going to be everyones' tall skinny latté. Starts with a few minutes of Zombie action in a drug den, some online vids of Zombie action and ends with a few minutes of Zombie action.

The rest is rather low key: the travails of a middle-class LA family whose son is a junkie who escaped the outbreak (everyone thinks he was hallucinating) at the start. The mother and stepfather are teachers and some of their students are missing due to a strange virus, One nerdy student is aware that something strange is taking place and has followed online reports of violence related to the virus. He tries to make his teacher (the mother) aware of this but to no avail. As the virus spreads in the background, another teacher (the stepfather) teaches a class on Jack London's wild nature novels.

This series is set at the very beginning of the Zombie Outbreak and is sufficiently different from The Waling Dead to offer promise for a spin-off series which breaks new ground.

8/10
 
Sounds like they've ripped off the junkie kid that everyone thinks is hallucinating idea from the (newish) Evil Dead remake .. junkie kid that no one believes at first was also the plot device for junkie Mia in that film. The Walking Dead, although I'm a fan, clearly ripped off the waking from a coma intro from 28 days later .. I'll definitely watch it when I can but it sounds more like shades of Romero's inbetween projects, Diary Of The Dead and Survival Of The Dead that weren't bad but not that good either compared to his earlier work. Having said that, my favourite start of the zombie apocalypse chapter is from Zack Snyder's Dawn Of The Dead remake ... a jaw dropping 15 or 20 minutes of twisted action.

My missus will probably eventually buy this new show's box set, she's got the hots for Rick Grimes and she owns all the other standard box sets so far from The Walking Dead, weird as her first love was/is Star Trek ?! .. I'm the one with the vintage zombie movies collection !
 
Loquaciousness said:
I have the Sky channels, but shan't watch it. Even The Walking Dead bored me in season 2 and I stopped watching it.
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You will live to regret that (but not for long) when the real Zombie Apocalypse comes. These shows have good survival tips
 
ramonmercado said:
You will live to regret that (but not for long) when the real Zombie Apocalypse comes. These shows have good survival tips
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Husband and I made zombie apocalypse plan a few years ago involving driving to local gun club, ammoing up and then holing up in the local Waitrose ( after clearing it of zombies obviously ).
 
My mate has Sky, but tells me he can only see the first episode, unless he signs up for the BT Sports package. As it's really a BT Channel! :confused:
 
We have the full Sky package, does that cover it d'you think?
 
Yay, thank you! :glee:

All I have to do now is find it.
 
Watched it and liked it. The young guy is seriously channeling a young Johnny Depp - uncanny.
 
I was very disappointed with the Walking Dead being a zombie fanatic for about twenty years, I've been disappointed with the zombie films of late too(of course there are plenty of old ones that are bad) including Romero's efforts, but I shall give it a wee watch anyway. They really should get Romero on board with some of these zombie TV shows. I believe there are three now.
 
chris138 said:
I was very disappointed with the Walking Dead being a zombie fanatic for about twenty years, I've been disappointed with the zombie films of late too(of course there are plenty of old ones that are bad) including Romero's efforts, but I shall give it a wee watch anyway. They really should get Romero on board with some of these zombie TV shows. I believe there are three now.
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What is it that you don't like about the WD?

I love Romero too, but I think he is past it. He was asked to be involved in the WD but chose not to as it wasn't his vision.

Z Nation is the other TV show which is actually fun with some in joke references to some of the older films like Return of the Living Dead. It doesn't have the budget of the WD but is a great way to while away a Sunday.

Most recent Z films have been poor. I think the WD graphic novels, series and the telltale game has been a shinning light amongst a lot of dross.

WWZ and Zombie Survial were good books, the film a wasted opportunity.

The tragedy of Zombie "art" is the overkill of it all. Zombie films need to be allowed shamble off into the sunset.
 
The WD drama put me off from the very start and I didn't like the characters. There was plenty of blood from what I remember. I watched two seasons I think.

I too would agree Romero has lost it, I'm not sure what Survival was......a very poor film.

I caught a bit of Z Nation the other night but my mind was elsewhere. I really should record these things.
 
chris138 said:
The WD drama put me off from the very start and I didn't like the characters. There was plenty of blood from what I remember. I watched two seasons I think.

I too would agree Romero has lost it, I'm not sure what Survival was......a very poor film.

I caught a bit of Z Nation the other night but my mind was elsewhere. I really should record these things.
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Survival was a load of Paddywhackery. The Field with Zombies.
 
chris138 said:
The WD drama put me off from the very start and I didn't like the characters. There was plenty of blood from what I remember. I watched two seasons I think.
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I slogged my way through the first three seasons of WD and was bored to tears (that flippin' farmhouse!) but the most recent two seasons I was happy to find myself really enjoying, with some very strong episodes. So give it another go, maybe, pick up from where you left off?
 
Loquaciousness said:
Husband and I made zombie apocalypse plan a few years ago involving driving to local gun club, ammoing up and then holing up in the local Waitrose ( after clearing it of zombies obviously ).
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Mine is to make a treacherous trip to the weapon shop on our street and then we are a couple of blocks over to the river. Steal a boat and sail to safety. Biggest issue will be finding enough insulin in the pharmacy to keep me going. I'll not last long when civilisation collapses... :(

As for FTWD, I quite enjoyed it. I've thought for a while they should do some spin-offs in other cities showing how things went down in LA, NYC, Texas... etc.

Few things... 1) The junkie kid is played by the son of Stephen Dillane (Stannis Baratheon from GoT) 2) The nerd schoolkid looked about 30! and...

... 3) They really introduced three black male characters and killed them all in one and a half episodes? After the black man death tag accusations of TWD...
 
Loquaciousness said:
Husband and I made zombie apocalypse plan a few years ago involving driving to local gun club, ammoing up and then holing up in the local Waitrose ( after clearing it of zombies obviously ).
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Meh! I had a plan since I first saw Dawn of the Dead on VHS in the 1980'S! :p

Having experienced New Zealand earthquakes, (one big one in particular), I reckon it's good to have a basic grab and go kit as well as a big survival kit at home.

The UK is now prone to flooding after all, I had a friend who lived through the Boscastle flood and he said it was devastating.

Back to Fear - Loving it, ok them finding the truck intact during the rioting was a bit silly, but watching things start to fall apart is fun as we didn't really see that in TWD.
 
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GNC said:
I slogged my way through the first three seasons of WD and was bored to tears (that flippin' farmhouse!) but the most recent two seasons I was happy to find myself really enjoying, with some very strong episodes. So give it another go, maybe, pick up from where you left off?
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Just re-watched season two and although they string out the missing Sophie plot way too long the end when we see idealist Rick start to turn into Grimey Rick the killer was pretty good.

Also think Jon Bernthal who played Shane got out of the show just at the right time. I think it's done his career no harm, (Fury etc), doing it but he won't be typecast a zombie killer forever.
 
FTWD is going well. Really enjoyed E3. Bit of a false dawn with the US Army arriving and apparently saving the day.
 
Just finished the first half of season 2 before the arrival of the second half. It's good that they show a likely outcome of a zombie apocalypse (or any apocalypse) would be lots of mental illness and trauma, but the very decent cast are saddled with soap opera lines and relationships that do them no favours. I'll keep watching for Kim Dickens, though.
 
GNC said:
Just finished the first half of season 2 before the arrival of the second half. It's good that they show a likely outcome of a zombie apocalypse (or any apocalypse) would be lots of mental illness and trauma, but the very decent cast are saddled with soap opera lines and relationships that do them no favours. I'll keep watching for Kim Dickens, though.
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Where has S2 of FTWD been show?
 
I watched it on Amazon Prime, so I've no idea what channel it's on, sorry.
 
First episode of this I've quite enjoyed, apart from the absurd baseball bat incident (even I, as a committed wuss, could have retrieved that rucksack). Not even my preferred character, either. Almost looking forward to next week's.
 
GNC said:
First episode of this I've quite enjoyed, apart from the absurd baseball bat incident (even I, as a committed wuss, could have retrieved that rucksack). Not even my preferred character, either. Almost looking forward to next week's.
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Not just me then? I was yelling at the tv for him to get in there and take the bat away. He really is a bit of a twat.
 
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