Coming as no surprise, AMC announced over the weekend that its TWD spin-off Fear the Walking Dead will be returning for a fifth season. That show is going through a reboot of sorts in its fourth year and its ratings were slipping as it headed into its mid-season finale, but I figured that the fifth year nod was a good bet. I was thinking that AMC might wait until it returned from hiatus to make a final decision, but even then it seemed unlikely that the network would truncate the series after only four seasons. The show did get a ratings boost at the beginning of its fourth year, likely because Lennie James brought his Morgan character over from The Walking Dead. But then the ratings started slipping again, and if that continues into the show’s fifth year it’s possibly that AMC could wrap this one up then. But more likely they are targeting a six year run for this spin-off series to get it to the number of episodes the syndication market prefers for an extended encore run. Fear the Walking Dead resumes its fourth season on August 12th.
Fear the Walking Dead started out as a prequel to The Walking Dead, taking place in the early days of the zombie-pocalypse and focusing on one group’s efforts to survive. It has since caught up with the parent series and the character Morgan has now joined the spin-off. It stars Kim Dickens, Colman Domingo, Lennie James, Maggie Grace, and Jenna Elfman.
Be sure to stay tuned to this site and the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for breaking news and updates as the Summer months wind down and we come to the end of the 2017-18 season.
