AMC has announced the premiere date for the second season of its The Walking Dead spinoff series Fear the Walking Dead. At the TCA’s today, the network revealed that Season 2 of Fear kicks off on Sunday, April 10th at 9:00pm ET/PT. This date actually isn’t much of a surprise, as The Walking Dead will be wrapping up its sixth season the week prior on April 3rd, so this gives AMC the opportunity to tout the return of Fear the Walking Dead as a palate cleanser/appeasement for Walking Dead fans.

Most notable, though, is the fact that every episode of Fear the Walking Dead will now be followed by Chris Hardwick’s talk show Talking Dead, meaning he’ll be sticking on the AMC airwaves for quite a bit longer this year. Talking Dead only aired after the Season 1 finale of Fear, but it appears AMC decided it’d be a swell fit for the entirety of the show’s second season.


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Image via AMC

As is AMC’s new tradition, the second season of Fear the Walking Dead will be split into two halves. The first seven episodes will air consecutively, with a midseason break followed by the remaining eight episodes later in 2016 (maybe as a buildup to the next season of The Walking Dead?). This is a way for the network—which has lost Mad Men and Breaking Bad with no wildly successful replacements to be found—to keep its biggest brand on the airwaves for a longer period of time.

While reaction to Fear the Walking Dead was mixed, I was a big fan of showrunner Dave Erickson’s take on the early days of the zombie apocalypse. Anchored by a swell performance from Kim Dickens, I appreciated the interesting character dynamics at play, and the show felt a lot less safe than The Walking Dead, which has fallen into a bit of a routine in terms of stakes. I’m curious to see how the series progresses with a longer season, and I hope there are more fascinating developments in store. The show already stands apart from The Walking Dead in that its second season is taking the action to the ocean, with production on Season 2 taking place in the Baja peninsula in Mexico.

Other AMC notables: TURN: Washington’s Spies premieres its third season on April 25th, and the Tom Hiddleston-fronted miniseries The Night Manager begins on April 19th. For premiere dates for all returning shows, check out our extensive calendar.

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Image via AMC