"The Walking Dead" Premiere Took a Big Bite of the Ratings

The Walking Dead premiered on Halloween night, a presumed ideal day to launch the zombie based horror series. The buzz was high and early reviews from critics were very favorable. Many pointed to the involvement of three time Oscar nominated director Frank Darabont (director of such films as The Shawshank Redemption and The Mist.) Darabont certainly has had a strong history in both prestige films and horror film. However even with the guiding hand of a film-maker as skilled and well suited to the material it was anybody's guess what the actual ratings were going to be like.

The Hollywood Reporter has revealed the ratings for the first episode of the new series, and they are astounding. The 90 minute premiere took in 5.3 million viewers, 3.3 million of which were from the most sought after demographic of 18-49 year old adults. This is the highest rated premiere of any cable television for the year of 2010. It's also the single highest rated episode for any show in AMC's history. Previously the basic cable channel had only been showing movies but 2007 saw the network begin to produce original programming with the tag line "story matters here."

AMC is already home to some very acclaimed shows. Mad Men and Breaking Bad have garnered praise, loyal fans and even Emmy awards for the network. The quality of it's original programming has brought ever increasing attention to the channel that had little to be known for in the past. But nothing AMC has done previously has even come close to producing numbers this high. And the reactions and feedback from critics and viewers alike has also been overwhelmingly positive, which would seem to point that the show may be able to keep a high percentage of that initial audience.

The Walking Dead is set in the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse, where the dead rose and attacked the living. The show follows a group of survivors lead by a former police officer (played by Andrew Lincoln) who are trying to find a place where they defend themselves from the zombies and make a new life. The show manages to maintain the level of general gruesomeness that is expected of a zombie story but downtown the actual gore enough to maintain a TV-14 rating. It airs Sunday nights on AMC.