Marking the mid-season of ‘The Walking Dead‘ season 10 (2010- Frank Darabont), gore packed ‘Stalker‘ came out last night, 2nd March 2020. Currently reaching an audience score of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, the episode lived up to the show’s IMDb title of best Zombie TV series ever made.
However, the AMC post-apocalyptic horror television series has not been doing great, recently hitting an all time low in term of audience viewing with its 10th season. During the opening episode, only 4 million people tuned, representing a 3% drop from the people who tuned in to watch the show’s previous low – season 9 episode 15 ‘The Calm Before‘. Since the 27th October 2019, the show has lost 34% in viewings.
More than that, its prequel ‘Fear the Walking Dead‘ (2015, Robert Kirkman, Dave Erickson), taking place between the zombie contagion and the start of The Walking Dead, has lost a great deal of viewers as well: 33.21% since the start of season 5.
Despite the promising ratings of The Walking Dead‘s last episode, the apocalypse survivors are facing a bigger threat than the walkers: fan disinterest in the franchise.
Which is not ideal considering that the AMC has a lot in stock for them. After the main character of the series, Rick Grimes, “left” the show in the 5th episode of season 9, the entertainment company made an announcement at the 2019 San Diego Comic Con: a feature film around the character to be produced soon. How soon is the question though. As of now, AMC has not revealed any information about was going to be released, or even start filming.
Considering the possible long wait for the feature film along with the low ratings of the central show and its spin-off, the audience might not stick around until its premier.
However, AMC has found the perfect idea: commissioning another show for the franchise. The air date announced in January, ‘The Walking Dead: World Beyond‘ premiering in April 2020 is already one of the most awaited TV series of 2020.
A story about the first generation to come-of-age in the apocalypse should keep the public eyes fixed on the AMC screen long enough for the film to come out, which in turn should improve the audience ratings for the other series.
Will this new TV series be enough to save the Zombie franchise?
Léon Bodier 
