Robert Kirkman’s comic book ‘The Walking Dead’ is one of the most brilliantly written books on the market. When the comic series, which recounts the story of a group of survivors amidst a zombie apocalypse, was transformed into a television series in 2010 by AMC, it was a wonderful surprise for fans of zombies and fans of great television.
Going into its second season, ‘The Walking Dead’ had a lot of troubles including financial woes and the dropping of showrunner Frank Darabont (‘The Shawshank Redemption’). Fans of the show were beginning to wonder if the new season would be watered down or lose some of the edge that made it so popular. Then, with last night’s season two premiere, all those fears were put aside as the undead drama returned with a vengeance.
The 90-minute episode, titled ‘What Lies Ahead’, completely obliterated the basic cable television viewership records. Variety reported that the show garnered 4.8 million views in adults 18-49 and 4.2 million in adults 25-54 for a total of 7.3 million viewers. When you factor in the two encore presentations that ran later in the night, the ‘Walking Dead’ premiere ended up with over 11 million viewers! To put it into perspective, previously the show ‘Monk’ held the record with 9.43 million views for it’s finale episode.
Not bad for a show that some feared wouldn’t even make it back for a second season. Miss the premiere? Check out our recap of ‘What Lies Ahead’ and tune into AMC next Sunday night at 9pm EST to join in on the flesh-eating goodness.
