‘The Walking Dead’ Season 8 Ratings: Zombie Drama Is Bleeding Viewership

Through Week 3 of Season 8, The Walking Dead continues to lose viewers on the heels of the premiere episode hitting a five-year low and Week 2 down about 20 percent from there. With that said, in the increasingly fragmented TV universe, TWD is still the most popular scripted drama on basic cable even given the downward ratings trend.

Variety provided the non-monster results, relatively speaking, of Week 3 of TWD.

“Episode 3 of Season 8, titled ‘Monsters,’ averaged a 3.8 rating in adults 18-49 and 8.5 million viewers. That is down approximately five percent in both measures from Episode 2, which drew a 4.0 and 8.9 million…The Walking Dead is now averaging a 4.3 and 9.6 million viewers per episode this season counting Episode 3.”

By way of comparison, 11.4 million viewers watch the season opener. In 2017, the debut episode (which resolved the cliffhanger about who Negan killed) drew about 17 million viewers and an 8.4 rating in the under-50 cohort.

All of the episodes benefit from an uptick in viewing after DVR activity is taken into consideration, however.

Week 3 also received a very low 52 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

The Quartz website offered this assessment of Season 8 so far.

“The show’s once-fiercely loyal fanbase is dropping like humans in a zombie apocalypse. The show still sells out conventions and screenings at concert halls, but millions of fewer viewers are tuning in each week to watch Rick & Co. wage an increasingly dull war.”

Fans and former fans have consumed an enormous amount of social media bandwidth discussing the issues with the TWD storyline, which, for some, has removed the series from the category of must-see TV. There is a lot of speculation about how the narrative might have unfolded if original showrunner Frank Darabont (who is suing AMC over profits) was still in charge.

The Walking Dead has been subject to criticism over many dialogue-heavy episodes, including digressions, with minimal action or events that move the narrative forward. Although the first three episodes this season have been action-packed, with all the nondescript soldiers backing up the main characters, absent multiple viewings it’s been confusing and somewhat difficult to distinguish between the good guys and the bad in the various attacks on Negan’s compounds. It also tends to be unclear where these skirmishes are taking place or the strategy in play by Alexandria, the Hilltop, and the Kingdom fighters.

Over the seasons, viewers have been subjected to the repetitive arc/loop in a kill-or-be-killed environment whereby Rick or some of the other main characters (e.g., Carol, Morgan, and now Jesus) transition from warrior to pacifist and back again, accompanied by pretentious discussions of morality. With that in mind, while mass executions would be fundamentally uncivilized, does any reasonable person — other than Jesus — believe that it is a good idea to bring dangerous Savior prisoners into the peaceful Hilltop community?

On the subject of morality/ethics in the zombie apocalypse, TWD curiously brought back Morales from Season 1 only to abruptly kill him off in Sunday night’s episode, as the Digital Spy noted.

“As the title of the latest episode suggests, the big question raised by Morales’ return is…who are the real monsters? Which is fine, except we’ve been here before. Many times…’Is Rick really any better than the so-called bad guys?’ is a question that The Walking Dead has considered and reconsidered time and time again. We’re still dealing with the aftermath of the show’s previous take on it, with Negan’s butchering of Abraham and Glenn being instigated by Rick’s own callous slaughter of dozens of sleeping Saviors.”

The rinse-and-repeat cycle of finding and then losing a safe haven as a result of the combined actions of menacing humans (i.e., Negan, The Governor, etc.) and zombies is also an issue for many fans.

There also has been consistent chatter that AMC-imposed financial constraints may explain the traditionally slow pacing over the course of a TWD season. According to Forbes, budget may indeed be an issue.

“There are too many characters for AMC’s stingy budget, which hasn’t gone up at all in years. In fact, the $3.4 million spent per episode in the first season was cut back to about $2.75 million per episode ever since. In Season 8 we have tons more actors than ever before eating up that budget…Whatever the case, it’s more apparent than ever that AMC needs to better fund this operation or drastically slim down its bloated cast.”

Filming for Season 8 of The Walking Dead reportedly will wrap on November 22 in Georgia. AMC execs have claimed that enough content exists for the TV show to go on for decades, but perhaps the viewers will ultimately decide when or if to stop the bleeding, as it were.

[Featured Image by Gene Page/AMC]