LOS ANGELES, Aug 23 — The spinoff of the celebrated zombie series will premiere simultaneously in the US and across the world today, August 23. Will “Fear the Walking Dead” enjoy the same success as the original, which in five years became one of television’s all time success stories?
Since 2010, audiences have been captivated by Rick Grimes and his group of survivors as they face a strange epidemic that transforms humans into zombies. The spinoff of the comic book adaptation will go in a completely other direction, in fact returning to the beginning of the outbreak and focusing on the first people infected, something the original series glossed over.
The spinoff will take place in Los Angeles, across the country from where the original action took place, in Georgia. The first season, comprising six episodes, will take place during Sheriff Rick Grimes’ coma, which we know lasted around one month. This time period was ignored in the AMC drama, though this is the time during which the country plunged into chaos.
A family drama first and foremost
The origins of the story we know today will be told through the eyes of a whole new set of characters, but mainly the leads Madison and Travis. The former is a widowed high school guidance counselor dating the latter, a divorced English teacher in the same school. As she juggles the pressures of her job, her relationship, her drug addicted drop-out son and her high-achieving ambitious daughter, Madison will now also have to deal with the society that is breaking down all around her.
All of a sudden this dysfunctional family must find strength in each other and evolve as a survival of the fittest takes hold. They must choose to either reinvent themselves or embrace their darker histories as they witness the beginning of the epidemic and the strange phenomena they can’t even begin to understand yet.
A guaranteed success?
“Fear the Walking Dead” premieres today on AMC, but also on various channels in numerous countries around the world. This simultaneous launch across the globe is proof that AMC and executive producer Robert Kirkman have high hopes for the series.
Nobody expects the spinoff to immediately earn the same sized audience as “The Walking Dead,” which has in the past had more than 20 million viewers per episode once Live+3 was calculated. But by airing the series just prior to the premiere of season 6 (airing October 11), AMC is hoping to fill a void and give its audience the zombie fix they crave. The network is also hoping to draw in some new fans since there is no need to have seen the first five seasons of the original series to be able to follow the spinoff.
Watch the trailer for “Fear the Walking Dead”: youtu.be/s8HJVBrSpMs. — AFP-Relaxnews
