‘Fear The Walking Dead’ Is Now More Popular Than ‘The Walking Dead,’ According To Some Statistics
It was inevitable, with the crossover of Morgan (Lennie James) from AMC’s The Walking Dead to its companion series, Fear the Walking Dead, that fans would also make the long walk alongside Morgan from Virginia to Texas. However, will fans now stay with Fear and abandon the original series?
Many fans have been complaining that The Walking Dead has been deteriorating at a rate comparable to the undead walkers seen in the zombie apocalypse series. Some have jumped ship and started watching Fear the Walking Dead, the companion series set across the country from the original. And both shows have pros and cons, depending on the fans. Some viewers devoured both shows, while others picked one over the other, depending on their undead taste. Regardless, The Walking Dead has always maintained the larger viewership.
However, now that Morgan has made the crossover, it seems Fear the Walking Dead is stepping up and getting ready to take that crown right out of Rick Grimes’ bloody hands.
According to Digital Spy, Fear the Walking Dead is now superior to The Walking Dead. They have based this on the Rotten Tomatoes score for both programs. According to Rotten Tomatoes, the overall score for The Walking Dead, for all of its seasons to date, is 80 percent. Fear, on the other hand, has a score of 82 percent based on critics who use this site. And this is for a show that has only half the amount of episodes and seasons compared to The Walking Dead. While The Walking Dead did previously have a higher overall score, the dismal ratings for Seasons 7 and 8 have brought the rating down considerably.
Alongside this number, the viewership for the Season 8 finale of The Walking Dead came in at 7.2 million according to Forbes. This is a massive slump from the heady days of 15.8 million people tuning in for the Season 5 finale. But how did Fear rank? Did many of those tuning into the Season 8 finale also amble across with Morgan to the Season 4 premiere of Fear?
According to Variety, the Season 4 premiere episode of Fear had a total of 4.1 million viewers. This is “up approximately 33% in the demo and total viewers compared to the Season 3 premiere.”
So, while Fear‘s ratings is soaring on Rotten Tomatoes, it still has a fair way to go in terms of actual viewers watching each week. However, the question remains: how many of those that swapped over on Sunday night will stay for Morgan’s journey? Only time will tell.
Fear the Walking Dead returns to AMC on Sunday, April 22, at 9 p.m. ET. Zap2It lists the following synopsis for Episode 2 (titled “Another Day in the Diamond”).
“A troubled survivor finds allies in an unexpected place; the life Madison has fought to build comes under threat.”