In September 2013, AMC announced they were developing a companion series to The Walking Dead, which follows a different set of characters created by Robert Kirkman. In September 2014, AMC ordered a pilot, which was written by Kirkman and Dave Erickson, and directed by Adam Davidson, and is executive produced by Kirkman, Erickson, Gale Anne Hurd, and David Alpert, with Erickson serving as showrunner. The project was originally known as Cobalt.
Plot
awakens in a heroin den in an abandoned church, to find his girlfriend Gloria eating a corpse. While fleeing, he is hit by a car and hospitalised. The doctor tells Madison and Travis that Nick's claims about the incident are heroin hallucinations, but Travis believes Nick after visiting the church himself. Alicia becomes more worried about Nick's chemical dependency. The next day, school closes early due to the high levels of absenteeism and rumours of an epidemic. Nick escapes from the hospital and meets with Calvin, hoping to learn if the drugs Calvin sold him caused him to hallucinate in the church. Calvin tries to kill Nick to prevent him from exposing Calvin as a drug dealer. In the ensuing struggle, Calvin is mortally shot. After Travis and Madison arrive, the zombified Calvin attacks them. Nick runs over Calvin repeatedly with Travis' truck, and the three watch in disbelief as the mutilated Calvin is still able to turn his head towards them.
Reception
The pilot episode of Fear the Walking Dead received very positive reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, it garnered a 91% rating with an average score of 7.53/10 based on 23 reviews. The site consensus reads: "'The pilot episode of Fear the Walking Dead does a solid job of establishing its characters and milieu, and provides enough tense moments to please diehard Dead heads." Matt Fowler of IGN gave "Pilot" a 7.6/10.0 rating stating, "Fear the Walking Dead brings a welcome shift in location, tone, and characters. Like Telltale's The Walking Dead video games, it's able to present us with an whole new cast of characters while demonstrating that it's really the zombified world that that's the star of the show and all that you really need for there to be a spinoff."
Ratings
The episode became the highest-rated series premiere for a scripted series in U.S. cable history, with 10.13 million viewers. "Pilot" is the highest rated episode of Fear the Walking Dead, with 10.13 million viewers in the United States on its original air date.
