AMC Trumps Ratings On Bad Shows: The Walking Dead Previews On Comic Book Men

“The Herded Sheep”

By:  Chris “DOC” Bushley

After last week’s midseason premiere of The Walking Dead, Kevin Smith’s Comic Book Men hit the airways. I was really looking forward to a show that would spotlight our glorious hobby while adding in all the hilarity of a Kevin Smith production. But, alas, I apparently set my standards too high. By the first commercial break I was pretty much over the Pawn Stars duplicate, looking only forward to the following week’s preview for The Walking Dead! 

Yes, AMC put the preview for episode nine of The Walking Dead in the first commercial break of Comic Book Men. Smart, very smart actually! How better to spike the ratings of a brand new show than to pull along the enraptured audience from one of their smash hit series! Just embed the previews for the next week within the new show’s commercial break, instead of at the conclusion of said show as per usual, and you have an instant ratings cushion! Brilliant for them, not so much for us. I would really love to see how drastic the ratings fell immediately after The Walking Dead preview concluded — because I was out of there faster than a fat kid in dodge ball!

So, I was thrilled this week as episode nine of The Walking Dead concluded, and we were graced with previews for episode ten immediately after! Until, AMC revealed that a sneak peak of episode ten would be shown during Comic Book Men! “Noooo! Well, I guess I could watch until the first commercial break,” I slyly convinced myself. But as I watched Kevin Smith and his collection of oddities amuse themselves with discussions of future self defilement and which super powers they would like to have, I realized I had been herded into a corral once again. If donkey wants the carrot, he pulls the wagon I guess! So, as the first and second commercial breaks fell by the wayside I looked at the clock. Finally, thirty-six minutes into this mind numbing “comic book show” I was given what I had come for — The Walking Dead sneak peak! All twenty-five seconds of it! I had spent thirty-six minutes watching forty-somethings attempt to play hockey, for a whopping twenty-five seconds of my favorite show! I will admit it openly, you got me AMC — but never again!

We here at the CBN offices offer to you a vast array of comic book, movie, game and television information. So, if you don’t enjoy having to wade through shows that you could care less about just to get your fix of the ones you do — I suggest this. Check out your favorite previews and sneak peaks here! Why should a mediocre show get trumped up ratings just because you want to see something from another show?! Let it falter, let the creators know that their product is not as good as the numbers show so that they can make it a better product! I am a huge fan of Kevin Smith, from his movies to the comics he has done, but this show just is not good, and it should not reap the rewards from a highly better show. AMC is smart, let’s be smarter and not fall into the trap they have set for us again. If you like Comic Book Men, great, enjoy it, but if the only reason you have it on is to see snippets of The Walking Dead — turn the channel! We will have it all for you here later and you won’t have to feel like a sheep anymore!