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Grammys? What Grammys? Airing against the second most watched Grammy Awards in history, AMC’s mid-season premiere of The Walking Dead at 9 PM posted rating records of its own. The zombie drama hit series highs in all categories with remarkable 8.1 million total viewers, 5.4 million adults 18-49 and 4.4 million adults 25-54. The Walking Dead‘s 18-49 and 25-54 deliveries were the highest ever for a basic cable drama series, beating the previous record, posted by the AMC zombie series’ Season 2 opener in October by 12% and 6% respectively. In total viewers, The Walking Dead‘s midseason debut ranks behind only the series finale of USA’s Monk and 4 episodes of TNT’s juggernaut The Closer. For the night, The Walking Dead averaged 10.1 million viewers, including the 11 PM and 12:30 AM encores. At 10PM, the premiere of Kevin Smith’s unscripted series Comic Book Men held onto a quarter of its huge lead-in, drawing 2 million total viewers. “It is a great night for AMC,” the network’s president Charlie Collier said. “We’re thrilled to see this incredible record breaking response to The Walking Dead, and Comic Book Men is off to a strong start as well.”
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It also broke the record for the most pointless, boring season opener in history. This show has become a tedious snooze-fest. I, for one, will not be watching next week.
Yes. It was no Downton Abbey. That’s for sure.
So next week will be 8.1 million minus 1.
I expect Comic Book Men to be down about 65 percent next weekend. Talk about a snooze-fest.
-2
Nope. That guy will still watch. If he hated the season opener, and still came back, he’ll be back again.
See you next week!
Completely agree! – what happened to the post-apocalyptic excitement of the first season! – feels like they spend the entire show talking about their feelings. The ONLY decent scene was with the two drifters killed in the bar – I had to watch a whole hour for that.
Also can someone muffle Collier – what a tool.
It’s not even a season opener for starters. It’s still Season 2 dude. Duh…
Would love to see COMIC BOOK MENs numbers at 10:16PM after all the Walking Dead fans saw next weeks preview and changed the channel after sitting trough 15 mins of this horrible show. No chance it lasts more than a season.
That is when I changed it, but it has to cost close to nothing to make so I could see it lasting more than one season
I usually love the show, but last night’s episode was really slow and kind of boring.
Funny how online comments fail to correspond at all to the show’s ratings. Which is a good object lesson for showrunners: ignore the online whiners, they aren’t where your paycheck is coming from.
No, online comments are like the stock market. The stock market is a leading indicator of investor and consumer confidence in the economy.
Online comments indicate viewer confidence – and interest – in the direction of a television show.
Admittedly, “they aren’t where your paycheck is coming from.” Their paychecks come from faceless corporate suits who could care less about them or their show.
The commenters are not your agents or toadies or friends or nephews. They watch your fucking show and they will tell your arrogant ass the truth.
And the truth is, WALKING DEAD has amazing actors, amazing photography, amazing stunts and effects… BUT THE WRITERS ARE FAILING. The plots are dull and random. The dialogue is a series of terrible speeches.
The writers need to get up off their bitch asses and write a show worthy of the elements someone else assembled for them.
Hi, Frank D — nice to know you’re still watching, despite getting your ass fired last summer!
“We’re thrilled to see this incredible record breaking response to The Walking Dead, and Comic Book Men is off to a strong start as well.”
Regarding CBM…this comment seems a but perfunctory.
It’s funny how the haters for this show keep growing, every week more people talk about how terrible this show.
Yet, it’s ratings just keep getting higher and higher, it’s like having people hate Your show is the ultimate strategy to get higher ratings.
What amazes me is that in 60 years NO ONE else has come up with a better ratings system than the Nielsen’s. And in this day and age there has got to be a far better method with far better accuracy. 18-49 & 25-54? Who comes up with these age ranges? FAR too wide. I am at age 46, not remotely interested in the same programming, products & services that I was at age 18. The age ranges need to be smaller. 18-21, 21-28, 28-35, 35-40, etc. I think they would be amazed at how much better they could advertise, sell and market their products with more accurate demographics. And talk about a monopoly–the only company in the U.S. to offer this service? Really?!
In regards to the comments of the show being slow/boring, episodes showing the characters development are needed. If the episodes turn into a horror movie of sorts revolving soley around killing zombies there will be no storyline. Without a storyline it will quickly become boring with every episode being the same thing.
It is sad to me what the public doesn’t know. Which is how utterly horribly this production treats the majority of its people…shooting in the sweltering heat of Georgia in the summer, beating down everyone on the crew on pay while trying to screw them out of whatever they can contractually and worst of all those poor extras–all those zombies you see for the most part. They are in prosthetic make-up, sticky fake blood and wool clothing, not to mention the contact lenses they are made to wear for far too long. And how do this show’s producers reward them? Minimum wage. That’s right, these people make $58.00 a day! (for 8 hours; it is $101.50 for a full 12 hour day which is standard on a film set). They make millions & pay the overworked worker bee as little as is required by law. The corporate machine at work folks–it ain’t just Wall Street–it’s rampant in these movies and TV shows you all just drool over. Despicable.
Hell yeah….not to spin out on the political kick on a zombie thread, but for all the progressive bullshit Hollywood likes to spew, its really a third world country where you have the “haves” at the top of the pile, and everyone else fighting to get by.
You know nothing of our profession or why we do what we do.
Well, the zombies ARE brain dead…..aren’t they? What do you expect?
I personally like season 2. Yes it is a little bit slow… but that is what sets it apart from the other zombie things out there. I get bored with just non stop action. When it;s just action action action all the time I get no chance to really figure out the characters. Since I care about the characters it’s nice to see some development for them. I don’t mind the pace at all. This is what sets it apart. It’s not just mindless killing, explosions, fights etc, all the time. It also has some drama and actually makes the characters act instead of running around chopping heads off all the time. So if you don’t like it you don’t like it. But there are some of us who have no problem with the pacing of the story.
Same thing with me. I hate zombie movies because there’s really no storyline, but when they create a drama it’s gotta be storyline first, zombie killing second.
*Hate = Ratings*
I’m with Chris Carter above. Comic Book Men holds no interest for me and it seemed to me to be kind of sexist. A good 5 minutes was devoted to asking each male cast member who the hottest female character in comic books is. How about some female perspective? I’m sure there are plenty of women out there who are obsessed with comics as well. I enjoy the character development this season. I enjoy the zombies as well but it’s about more than them. I’ll be tuning in next week.
Formerfan…you are so right. I was never a fan of yours. Just not a fan of anybody anymore.
Walking Dead is the best show on TV. Nothing comes close. Norman Reedus will be nominated for an Emmy.
Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire. And Breaking Bad. And Mad Men. Fringe. Other than that, yeah, I’d say so.
You forgot to add Justified and Homeland to that list.
First, I wish people would be clear about which show they are talking about as two are being discussed.
“Former Fan” refers to a boring season opener, which cannot be TWD as that was the 7th episode of season 2. Not much of a fan if you don’t know that. Likewise, if all you want is endless zombies then your definitely asking for a short run because you would get bored with that as well. Further, Kirkman has made it clear “people are what its about” and the zombies are secondary.
I think AMC made a huge blunder with the placement of “Comic Book Men”, which I did not watch. So many of the TWD viewers have never read the graphic novels (comics) that Kirkman created, and could give a rats butt about comic book collectors and dealers. What real fans of the show want after Walking Dead is “Talking Dead”. There was huge disappointment in the fan base last night that TD has been pushed back so late.
I’ve read every issue of TWD, and love it. And I could give a rats butt about which issue of Batman is hot. Really? A comic book dealer? Did all the shows about pawn brokers and stuff get big enough ratings that AMC saw a cash bonanza??
Hey AMC, at least try to study your viewers wants before you throw cash down a hole.
Yeah I was getting really annoyed by watching CBM to see TWD preview for next week’s show…lol, those numbers should be interesting after that…
I was Fast Forwarding almost entire episode. I watched 40 minutes episode in like 15 minutes. So boring and senseless that was. Every time they opened their mouth to give another boring speech about nothing i pushed button. I skipped entire Hershel’s speech in the bar. And then that entire speech with those two other guys that came. And I pushed the Fast Forward button every time when Carol showed up….
And in this episode I used FF button the most. At first it was like: “O’k this looks like another boring talking so I will skip 30 seconds till the next scene” And then 30 seconds turned to 2 minutes and then 5 minutes. And here I am – skipping 20-25 minutes of the show. Because no one wants to hear for the 1000 time how they will whine to each other.
We want action. We want to see how they will SURVIVE. But those days are gone. Somehow they don’t have to worry about the food. And the fuel for cars. And farm is magical place where zombies don’t pay visits. So our survivors don’t have other things to do then fighting with each other. Because they are bored. And didn’t it occurred to them that once they would have to fight zombies to survive – they would forgot their problems with each other and would be in peace
You know everybody says that Twihards should demand quality of Twilight movies from producers. I say we have to demand quality from Walking Dead producers. And teach them if they will give us bad seasons then we will not watch. But here we are – braking another records.
I agree with you to a large extent, especially about the speeches. Frankly, the dialogue is terrible. Every week, I watch, and I wait, hoping against hope it will get better. Decent actors, great location and look, genuinely creepy walkers… But I don’t ever care one wit what comes out of any of their mouths. Nothing clever, nothing ironic, nothing funny. It always feels like drama words for the sake of sounding dramatic… but no substance. Since the pilot, this show has been a disappointment.
” I skipped entire Hershel’s speech in the bar.”
Kill yourself because that was some top notch acting and one of the biggest character turning points in the show to date.
You don’t deserve story. Just go look at pretty lights or something.
Well I would gladly be a zombie for free just for a chance to have that opportunity. Its art. Its sad to me what some people don’t think about …
Umm Ney-Sayer, if you don’t like it, go away. WE obviously do like it to stop bring a jerk-a-potamus…
Love the show. It’s about people. Not Zombies. That moment in the bar was fantastic. If Zombies had come in it would be more heads exploding and chases. Same old. This scene took our characters to a whole other level.
And right now they’re on the farm trying to figure shit out. And it’s complicated. If it was all zombie attacks it would be boring.
I WILL give them credit for the hooligans in the bar. That was the most nerve-wracking (in a good way) the show has been in a long, long time.
I was a big fan of Walking Dead in the first season. But after a few episodes of Episode 2, I’ve tuned out. Pacing is slow, action is minimal, and characterization? Please… not if it requires sitting around a campfire for entire episodes talking about how much they miss their old lives and wanting to escape it all over and over.
I like the show, I really do. But last night’s episode was poor. Lori should be in a soap opera and not a zombie show. She leaves Carl completely alone after he lost his best friend Sophia and after she begs Rick not to leave Carl—that was contradictory so it made the scene stupid. How concern is she really about her son’s wellbeing? Oh yeah! She doesn’t know the town so she goes by herself and then she reads and drives at the same time so she crashes…really boring. She also calls Daryl “selfish” hmmmm…cat calling the kettle black???
Daryl is a cool hunter and zombie killer so make him do that more in the show to give it more energy and movement. They give Andrea the cool kills while Daryl sits and plays with a woodstick!? The show needs better writing.
Haha! I wondered if anyone else would notice that. Doesn’t seem like they’re much of a fan anyway if they thought this was the season opener.
I take it you jest! Downton Abbey itself has gone rapidly downhill since its excellent first series. Give me a ‘slow’ Walking Dead than positively deceased Downton Abbey any day of the week (and I loved DA series 1)
I would bet 90% of the viewers that watched Comic Book Men were waiting for the preview scenes of the next episode of Walking Dead, as I was. Unfortunately, after 10 minutes of Comic Book Men I couldn’t tolerate any more. Regardless of how much I wanted to see the previews of next week’s walking dead, I couldn’t watch any more. It was painfully boring.