Fear The Walking Dead Ratings Post Mortem

I’m surprised that AMC has renewed Fear The Walking Dead for a third season, given how the second season and overall ratings trajectory has performed.  So even though they’re planning more, it’s still damn near a post-mortem to look at the ratings.

The finale for season 2 just managed to keep its head above the three million viewers mark, with 3.05 million tuning in.  If it sounds like a lot, it should be pointed out that that’s less than half of the premiere at 6.67 million viewers.  In fact, overall, it’s been on a downward trend.

Season 1 in blue, Season 2 in red

The final episode drew almost one third of the peak viewership of 10.13 million, which was what the pilot garnered. What is the ratings parasite here?  I would guess we’re seeing the simply results of bad writing.  It looks to me like Fear the Walking Dead is little more than a clone of the main series and has inherited some of the routines of that show.

Namely, a lack of zombies (makeup and hordes of extras take time and resources, are they purposely supplementing that with cheaper melodrama?) and tired plot devices such as smothering onesself in guts in order to circumvent the entire premise on its head.  We’ve seen that all before.

Last year, for the first time in its history, the main series took a hit in its rating average.  It was a constant upward trend, all the way up to 14.40, until the first negative emerged with a 13.15.

For sure, it’s still highly profitable, the main series, but we’re probably looking at the first stages of fatigue, regardless of what fanboys might think.  I would say that Fear the Walking Dead will finish up on television in 2017 and depending on its ratings, will probably (or maybe even not) be relegated to webisode format.

To me, the biggest offence of this franchise is invincible characters, the decision to not pursue some type of anthology format has robbed it of its full potential.