The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live killed with its Sunday-night premiere.
The latest entry in the Walking Dead franchise delivered nearly 3 million premiere-night viewers (with Live+3 playback), marking the largest premiere-night audience for a new AMC series in six years (since The Terror’s March 2018 debut, which enjoyed an original episode of The Walking Dead as a lead-in).
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The episode “Years” also stands the No. 1 cable drama premiere of the 2023-24 TV season in key demos.
On the streaming-only front, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live‘s premiere set all-time records for both viewership and customer acquisition on AMC+, with its two-day viewership total outpacing the first week of viewership for any other season premiere on the platform.
TVLine readers gave the first episode an average grade of “B+”; read our full recap.
Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira, who star as Rick and Michonne and also serve as executive producers on The Ones Who Live, said in a joint statement, “When we each began this extraordinary journey so many years ago, the most mind-meltingly beautiful moments have always been either with or about the fans. Playing trailers at San Diego Comic-Con, sharing the dark with 6,500 people, we both came to realize this is a story that is a connection between the passionate commitment of our remarkable crews and casts and the greatest fans in fandom.
“Telling this story from behind and in front of the cameras as a team has been a dream (sometimes a fever dream),” the duo continued, “and to see the response is even better than five pizzas and a wedding ring.” (Ed. Note: That’s a reference to an instantly iconic line from the first episode.) “We want to take this opportunity to thank those fans from the bottom of our blood-stained hearts. We all did this together. Big, Epic Love, Andrew and Danai.”
The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live continues its run this Sunday at 9/8c with the episode “Gone.”
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