During The Walking Dead's season 5 finale we were treated to a little taste of what's to come in that show's West Coast-based spin-off, Fear The Walking Dead.
(Yes, it's a terrible name for the new show, though not short on brand recognition at least. I discuss the newly revealed show's name here. You can read my review of the season finale here.)
In any case, I was feeling a little excited about seeing the first glimpse of the new show, which has a good number of cast members already announced and some promo stills out on the web.
Unfortunately, all we got was a fifteen-second teaser.
If anything, the teaser and the confusing name for the spin-off will just befuddle viewers not up-to-date on the spin-off news.
Hopefully AMC gives us more to go on soon, because as it stands this is a pretty weak introduction to the show's story and setting. We see it's in LA and we see it's at least beginning during the outbreak itself rather than after the fact.
I guess I was just hoping for more.
The big question surrounding the spin-off is whether AMC can pull off a successful follow-up to such a wildly popular show, especially while the original is still airing. So far, AMC has had an excellent run with Better Call Saul, the Breaking Bad spin-off.
Will lightning strike twice? As Forbes' Merrill Barr notes, ratings success may not happen overnight:
The network’s shows are notorious for having low ratings in a traditional format, however they seem to do very well when building to an event – such was the case with the final season of Breaking Bad. Chances are good the ratings of Fear the Walking Dead are going to seem lackluster at first when the show kicks off during the summer. That said, if the characters hold up, the Netflix viewership that will take place during the show’s hiatus will propel it to decent ratings come the time of its guaranteed second season.
Fear The Walking Dead is slated to debut this summer.
Here's the new trailer:
