There has been no shortage of drama surrounding AMC and the treatment of its shows and the people who make those shows work. Frank Darabont was shit-canned in a pretty shocking manner, Mad Men: Season 5 (although not entirely AMC’s fault) got pushed to 2012, and there was a threat of Breaking Bad no longer calling AMC home because, let’s face it, AMC are stingy sumbitches.
But today there are two announcements. Firstly, the season premiere of The Walking Dead will be, much like the show’s pilot, 90 minutes. Great!
Here’s the bad news: the season will be split up. Yeah, that’s right. 7 episodes this Fall, the remaining 6 coming in February.
Look, I wholeheartedly acknowledge that December and January are tough months for television, what with all the holiday mingling and gift-giving and such but give me a break. This is the kind of thing that killed a fantastic show, Men Of A Certain Age, and while ultimately the writing was on the wall for that show and it never so much as sniffed the kind of ratings that The Walking Dead gets, it’s still bad news when you string an audience along and expect them to be back after a hiatus. Especially after all of the internal muckety-muck that has gone on with the show which calls to question just how good season 2 will be anyway.
I don’t expect season 2 to suffer because of this, at least not ratings-wise. But it doesn’t do a thing to maintain or cater to a loyal fanbase. It’s television blue balls, is what it is.
(via IGN)
10 comments
That’s not that bad, 7 eps starting in October means in will stop probably right before Xmas, then wait 1 month and it starts back up in February. It’s not like those 6 month waits we were getting with BSG.
I agree, the BSG waits were bad and didn’t kill that show. But all this does is add to the pile of shit AMC has been shoveling around their shows. It’s a slap in the face to the audience that had a measly, mediocre 6 episode first season to expect them to put up with an unnecessary (although totally necessary if you’re a money-grubbing network like AMC) hiatus.
The audience WILL put up with it, though, and ratings will still be phenomenal. But it sets a precedent that cable television doesn’t have to be a concurrent 12 or 13 episodes and networks can space it out for bigger and better ratings and for viewers that, frankly, sucks.
I get exactly what you are saying, and I do agree. it’s not a good precedent. I plan to fill that month playing Skyrim or maybe I’ll read a book….
I don’t know how long you’ve watched television, but they’ve been doing this for years. Most network shows start in September or October, run through Thanksgiving (anywhere from 6-10 episodes) for November sweeps. They then take a break until the end of January or early February (which is, of course, sweeps again), with perhaps a stray episode or two to fill in the gap.
Most “network” shows. This isn’t network television. We accept 12 or 13 episodes from basic cable (and pay cable) because in most cases they’re of a higher quality, in terms of storytelling as well as budget and scope. Interrupting a 24 episode season makes sense but when your season is shortened by design already, it’s unacceptable to me to have a momentum killer like a hiatus. It’s horseshit, and no one should accept or embrace it.
Yeah, that is typical for TV. They will probably skip the Sunday after Thanksgiving because people are traditionally still travelling then, come back with the 7th episode on the 4th. The hiatus is a bit longer than old school network television, but more and more shows are doing this.
I await the bile and anger when they announce that the final season of Breaking Bad will be split in two with a 6 month hiatus in between. You know that’s coming.
Well, that’s totally understood because it’s 16 episodes…surely we don’t expect a 16 episode uninterrupted season.
Quite frankly, this hiatus is probably what they need to get the kinks worked out for a midseason switch of their showrunners.
Hopefully they won’t use this break as an excuse to split the release of the Season 2 blu-ray into Season 2: Part A and Season 2: Part B but still charge full price for both blu-rays.
Considering the first season only gave us 6 episodes to chew on (which i considered great. sure, its not the citizen kane of tv, but a network finally gives us a kick-ass zombie show and somehow a large proportion of the audience wants to say “it sucked”….psh. It sucked? Compared to what? That other awesome zombie show? Face it, you had fun watching it, what more do you want?) i really dont mind getting 7 episodes in october and the rest a couple months later. The october run is already giving us more than we got last year, and then there’s more zombie kick-assery to follow in february, which should be right around the time i’m done having my way with october’s episodes. So…no more cries, dry your eyes, be entertained by corpses covered in flies you guys.
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