‘Walking Dead’ season 3 debut breaks more records, earns more praise from critics
The Season 3 premiere of “The Walking Dead” broke the ratings record for a drama series on basic cable, AMC Networks said Monday.
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The show, telecast Sunday night at 9 p.m. ET, garnered 10.9 million viewers and a household rating of 7.4.
Theodore Douglas as T Dog
That is more than 50% higher than last season’s premiere.
An encore showing at 10 p.m. brought in an additional 3.5 million viewers, AMC added.
“Thank you to the fans for making ‘The Walking Dead’ such a tremendous success,” said Charlie Collier, president of AMC. “We are honored and humbled that television’s largest adult audience resides on AMC.”
The season premiere, titled “Seed” was praised by famous gurus at Fangoria, saying ‘Walking Dead’ is “…only place on earth where zombies are still scary. Not just scary, but vulgar, grotesque and nightmarish echoes of what we are reduced to; slowly moving, collapsing yet feral shells. You know…the way zombies used to be.”
“If “Seed” is evidence of things to come, then THE WALKING DEAD has truly found its footing, firing on all cylinders and pushing Berger and Nicotero to work overtime to earn their keep,” Fangoria added.
Entertainment Weekly was keeping score, noting that “Twenty-eight seconds. That’s how long it took Andrew Lincoln’s Rick Grimes to make the first zombie kill in tonight’s season 3 premiere.”
“Going back and doing quieter stories with less zombies just didn’t seem like the right move,” explains Robert Kirkman, writer of the Walking Dead comic and an executive producer on the show. “So we decided to plow ahead and make things a little more high octane.”
The debut offered a look at the prisoners still inside the prison which Rick and the gang just “took over.”
Episode 2 is titled “Sick,” see the trailer below.
From left to right: Big Tiny (Theodus Crane), Oscar (Vincent Ward), Axel (Lew Temple), Andrew (Markice Moore), and Tomas (Nick Gomez)
Here’s the character breakdown from Mazzara:
Tomas (played by Nick Gomez)
“Tomas is the leader. Tomas is the alpha male. He’s the one who is in charge and he is the one who has set the rules, and he did before the apocalypse; he’s been doing that since, and suddenly, here’s Rick telling him, ‘This isn’t even your prison any more.’ Tomas is not going to stand for that.”
Andrew (played by Markice Moore)
“Andrew is really Tomas’ right-hand man. These guys are really the ones who have been intimidating Axel and Oscar.”
Axel (played by Lew Temple)
“Axel is a great character. He’s someone who was probably a two-bit criminal who finds himself in a bigger mess. He’s probably happy to be freed by Rick because he realizes he’s not as cutthroat as Tomas and Andrew.”
Oscar (played by Vincent Ward)
“Oscar is another guy who has had to go along with Tomas’ rule.”
Big Tiny (played by Theodus Crane)
“Big Tiny is the muscle of the group. The idea was that all of these guys together are a formidable force. These are hardened convicts who have survived living together for almost a year, almost in the same way that Rick and his group have. So this is a surprising force for Rick to come up against. And they are formidable. And they are scary. And they are dangerous. Just as dangerous as Rick’s group.”
[…] Walking Dead season three premiere recently broke records in the US, becoming the highest-rated episode of a cable drama in […]