There’s One Dramatic Way ‘Fear The Walking Dead’ Could Raise The Stakes On ‘The Walking Dead’

From 2003 until 2011, Fox’s reality series American Idol was the top-rated show in America, and it wasn’t even close. Every year’s finale was the highest rated program outside of the Super Bowl. It was an event series, a juggernaut that seemed like it would never stop. Like the NFL, American Idol was destined to be an annual part of our lives.

In 2011, however, Fox premiered The X-Factor, another singing competition that would bridge the gap between seasons of American Idol. Ratings for the series were respectable, and given the relatively cheap cost of the show and the ability to fill it with product placements, it was quite profitable. However, it was the beginning of the end for American Idol. Along with The Voice, The X-Factor contributed heavily to singing competition exhaustion. There were simply too many singing competitions and they were all cannibalizing each other, and as a result, the stakes for each one evaporated. The X-Factor was cancelled after two seasons, and American Idol hobbled along until last month, when it finally left the air after 15 once-dominant seasons.

Fear the Walking Dead may very well be The X-Factor to The Walking Dead‘s American Idol. The Walking Dead has been the highest rated show on cable for a few years now, but ratings for the series began to slip as soon as Fear debuted. Meanwhile, Fear manages respectable ratings, but they have gradually fallen from a premiere with 10 million overnight viewers to the most recent episode, which had only 4.45 million viewers.

Granted, the quality of Fear is improving, but that’s not been reflected in the ratings. More troubling, I might argue, is that some have even suggested that Fear is a better show than The Walking Dead. Having the original series unfavorably compared to the spin-off isn’t good for the long-term health of The Walking Dead, which Robert Kirkman hopes will run 10 or 12 seasons. Fear, however, puts that into jeopardy, because it may cannibalize the parent series and invite unfavorable comparisons that will ultimately make us less excited about The Walking Dead.

Here, however, is the perfect solution. Fear the Walking Dead has already been renewed for a third season, where its ratings will undoubtedly continue to erode. AMC, however, could take a risk by doing something that would benefit both Fear in the short term and The Walking Dead in the long term.

AMC could end the series after season three.

AMC shouldn’t just end Fear, however. It should do so in a way that would dramatically increase the stakes in The Walking Dead. Part of the allure of The Walking Dead is finding out how it will end: Will they find a cure? Will Rick and Carol and Daryl survive? Kirkman is on record saying that The Walking Dead will have a hopeful ending. What better way to contrast that and make viewers even more anxious about The Walking Dead characters than to kill the entire cast of Fear the Walking Dead.

This is how most of the good zombie movies end, anyway. The Romero flicks, Quarantine, 28 Days Later, and The Return of the Living Dead, among others. It’s the classic zombie trope: Everybody dies. Killing everyone off on Fear would dramatically increase our respect for the series, but more importantly, it puts it in our minds that the same thing could happen on The Walking Dead. “No one is safe,” Robert Kirkman and Scott Gimple often like to reiterate. Killing every single character off of Fear would give that refrain extra meaning. It would also make Fear a much better complement to The Walking Dead. It would be a self-contained, three-season series whose one job is to heighten our fears about the fate of the The Walking Dead characters.

Nothing is more important to AMC than its flagship series The Walking Dead. The network needs it to launch The Terror, The Son and Thief of Thieves, but once it has, AMC should have enough programming to sustain itself without the dwindling ratings of Fear the Walking Dead. This is the perfect out. It’s ballsy. It will give us respect for Fear; it will stop the cannibalization; and it will raise the stakes on The Walking Dead. It’s a win-win for AMC. Moreover, if they could keep it a secret until the finale airs, it could go down as one of the most dramatic series endings ever.

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