You don't have to be Cole Sear from The Sixth Sense to see dead people in your future. American tales from the past and beyond the grave are coming to Australia, bringing the small screen to life and hopefully resurrecting the same ratings fortunes that accompanied them in the US.
Certainly nothing could stop the steady zombie onslaught of The Walking Dead, whose season four premiere on US cable network AMC captivated 16.1 million viewers, 10.4 million of them in 18-49. They landed on our shores merely hours later, 'Express from the US', as it were, to Foxtel, where they scared up 216,000 viewers on FX and FX+2, making it the most watched show to date on subscription TV.
"We have a different relationship with the public," said Foxtel director of programming and channels, Ross Crowley. "It's more intense, it's more immersive and more targeted and that is what our audience seeks from the content we have and it's what we then can pass on to our partners."
So how do you tap into the reanimation game without marginalising the mainstream? Seven revealed in its upfront Tuesday night that they are bringing a kinder kind of dead to its broadcast network in 2014, a hotly anticipated drama from ABC Studios and Plan B Entertainment (Brad Pitt's company! He of World War Z zombie fighting!) called Resurrection about what happens when people thought long gone return. "It's a highly emotional drama that we feel will connect with our core 25-54 female audience," said Angus Ross, director of programming.
Of course Seven has already aired The Blacklist, populated with dead bodies though it may be. The thriller/character study/procedural set a record in the States during its second week when it added 6.504 million viewers to its initial live-plus-same-day figure of 11.354 million when factoring DVR usage after seven days. In Australia, the 21 October episode scored 1.468 million viewers, attesting to its killer status as the most successful new drama in the US and Australia.
Not yet seeing the full benefits of an undead diet is Ten, which has fast-tracked Sleepy Hollow and its headless horseman and the witches of American Horror Story: Coven, both successful dramas in the US. Perhaps fortunes will turn for Hollow when, in the coming weeks on the limited-run series, the show will feature guest appearances by Australian actor and Fringe vet John Noble as well as Amandla Stenberg, little Rue in the film The Hunger Games.
But wait! Who's that other ghost from television past you're seeing? Is that Mork from Ork? Yes, comedian Robin Williams has returned to the world of sitcoms in The Crazy Ones, where he plays a legendary ad exec in a workplace comedy alongside Sarah Michelle Gellar, the erstwhile Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Fox8 picked up the CBS laugher, which did okay numbers in the States but premiered here on Sunday to 109,000 viewers, according to live and plus-2 figures.
Supernatural elements notwithstanding, US television is alive and well and we've only read a few tea leaves.
See how the new TV season is stacking up for Australia with a TV special report in the next print issue, out 1 November. It will be packed with more trends and analysis of the northern Autumn slate and what Aussies can learn from American network successes and failures. There's a Mipcom review too.
Cynthia Wang is an expert TV writer and has covered US broadcasting for two decades.
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