‘Fear the Walking Dead’ episode 4 drops further in the ratings

Are viewers starting to get afraid of “Fear the Walking Dead“? We’d say that for the time being there is some cause for concern with the AMC show, but at the same time, there is not anything worth hitting the panic button about at the moment.

The numbers are in for Sunday night’s new episode, and the show generated a strong 3.3 rating in the 18-49 demographic along with 6.6 million viewers. We have to start things off here by saying that in relation to everything else on the night, the Robert Kirkman companion series is a beat. The show more than tripled any other original cable programming on Sunday in the demo, and so long as the show gets anywhere over a 2.0 rating, we don’t see it going anywhere on AMC. It probably could survive even with a rating lower than that, but we do imagine that a show like this with all of the effects has a heftier price tag.

So why is there any concern? It’s simply because the show has yet to stabilize, and has dropped every week since it first premiered in August. There are some extenuating circumstances here, including heavy competition on Sunday from both the Emmys and Sunday Night Football for the second straight week. Given that it is still technically summer, there are probably also some young people trying to take advantage of the warmer weather on a Sunday night.

Our largest reason for worry right now is simply that we do think the show has some creative issues to work out, and we’ve heard from many readers / viewers alike at this point that they simply don’t care for any of the characters just yet. There is still time for things to turn around and get better, but we feel like the show needs to do something either in the final two episodes of season 1 or early in season 2 to shore up its long-term success.

If you want to see some other coverage on “Fear the Walking Dead,” head over here to read some reaction to the National Guard story from this past episode. Also, you can sign up here to get some other TV news on all we cover via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: AMC.)