The Walking Dead season 8 premiere date, Fear the Walking Dead return date confirmed
The new season of the zombie epic is formally starting things back off on Sunday, October 22 at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time, which fits well within the window of what we expected. The image above is such that we have two major takeaways upon looking at it.
1. That’s a TON of cast members. For all of the people that do tend to be killed off on this how, there does always find a way to be. It’s also a little bit interesting that Ezekiel is featured so prominently given that he is such a recent addition to the show (is that the Ezekiel factor?); meanwhile, it’s also interesting that Father Gabriel is shoved so far into the background whereas people like Jesus have a little more face time. (With all of that said, cool move by the designers to place Morgan, Carol, and Daryl so close to each other — we do like to think of these three almost like the show’s holy trinity. They are the three characters who are likely going to be at the epicenter for most of the series’ action coming up.
2. Obviously, Rick and Negan are going to be the two stars of this, given that the entire theme for the eighth season is an all-out war between the group at Alexandria and the Saviors. We already lost Sasha, and odds are we’re going to lose many other familiar faces by the end of the road. People like Eugene and Dwight are guys we could easily see getting caught in the crosshairs, largely because they have allegiances and bonds on both sides.
As for Fear the Walking Dead…
The new art for this show confirms that the second half of the season is airing on September 10 at 9:00 p.m. Eastern. That’s hardly a big layoff, but AMC obviously needed to premiere the show around then if the goal is to have it done before the flagship show comes back for more.
In terms of the timeslot, this is certainly far better than the show airing over the holidays or on another night; it’s also probably going to need to do a two-hour premiere / a two-hour finale to make the scheduling work in the amount of time that it has. We don’t love the fact at all that the show’s airing at the same time as Outlander on Starz, though we recognize that the two shows have very different audiences. (Also, Starz has a tendency to place their programming on the app early, so Outlander fans will likely have a chance to check out the show before its time-period premiere anyway.)
Which one of these shows are you the most excited to have back on the air? Be sure to share below.
Also, be sure to check back over the course of the coming days, given that we assume that the spotlight will be put on both of these shows during their San Diego Comic-Con appearances.
Jonathan T. Folz
July 24, 2017 @ 2:34 am
Damn, you guys called that one. Your guess was Dec and it ends up being just over a week shy of that. Good call. it’s a good thing you told us too, because AMC’s website went to great pains to hide this release date. I’m happy to have a zombie spinoff but I’m staring to feel a bit put upon here. With most people, or a large minority at least, choosing when/how to consume content,the whole “GOT cast to large a shadow for another fantasy/sci-fi show like Fear-TWD to Dare to thrive” just doesn’t work. If a show has value, usually that value will be recognized.
Not to geek out too much here but zombie flicks occupy a fairly focused and unique space within the apocalypse genre. It’s kind of like saying Ford is deaying the release of next season’s Mustang to avoid having to compete with the new Tesla sports model. Guess what? Ford Mustang never had to worry about being in competition with Tesla much like Fear The Walking Dead never had to really worry about competing with Game of Thrones. But it’s not just the schedule management that essentially seems to be “you’ll see it when we tell you you’ll see it” thing that bothers me. Fear-TWD has a total of what, maybe 22 episodes? Hell, season 1 had a total of 6 episodes. Perhaps that “season” would be more accurately refered to as a “pilot”. And yet we’re all expected to just go along with this 3 season farce. Just for comparison, Enterprise had 22 to 26 episodes a season. 12 Monkeys came out around the same time as Fear-TWD and it has 36 episodes to its credit. It’s almost as if the producers are trying to get the fans to dislike the show or ad least the haphazard approach to managing it. Tell ya what, why dont we just call each episode a “season” and that way, AMC can be forgiven for never knowing when or if Fear’s next release is.