‘Fear The Walking Dead Flight 462’ Debuts, Will It Drag Longer Than The Show?

With the season finale of Fear the Walking Dead upon us, AMC has released the first in a series of webisodes for a companion piece to the spin-off show called Fear the Walking Dead Flight 462. There are obvious attempts to build up the atmosphere of the show, but is it in danger of being dragged out too long by the shortness of each episode?

Fear the Walking Dead Flight 462: Part 1 is the first installment of a 16-part series that will be available every week through YouTube, the AMC mobile app, and during ad breaks in the main The Walking Dead series set to premiere on October 12. The episode is only a minute and 25 seconds long, however, which means the total runtime for the short will be approximately 23 minutes. Again, that’s 23 minutes stretched out over 16 weeks if they stay this short.

The good news is Flight 462 cuts straight to the chase in just the first minute before raising the stakes in the final 25 seconds. The plane is at the terminal in an unknown city full of obviously agitated passengers from the ongoing zombie outbreak that everyone knows about, but is still not being spoken of for whatever reason.

In this case, a teen boy is sitting on a flight to Los Angeles to meet his father the following morning and finds out via text that his mother will miss her flight and not be able to meet them until later. The plane pulls away from the gate as a woman thanks Jesus and another man receives a text that all flights have been grounded. The man gets the attention of the rude flight attendant who tells him they are taking off anyway; surely the first mistake of this zombie outbreak in the skies short.

The teen boy talks on the phone to his mother who tries to reassure him that she will meet up with him and his father later the next day. That reassurance is cut short though as screams are heard in the background of her cellphone before the call is cut and a clearly annoyed Asian lady slams the window the boy was looking out of shut.

There is a somewhat amusing bit in the middle of this where the words coming of the man’s mouth talking to the flight attendant was clearly dubbed over along with the attendants. The claustrophobic environment of the plane is definitely felt in the brief minute along with the rising tension levels.

The events in Fear the Walking Dead: Flight 462 are not completely isolated. AMC previously announced that at least one survivor from the flight will join the cast for the second season of Fear the Walking Dead. The teen boy and Asian woman are clearly the early favorites thanks to the focus on the two of them during short and the marketing for the webisodes.

“Flight 462 is a great extension of the world of Fear and will engage fans across multiple platforms with another riveting story set at the start of the fall of civilization,” said Joel Stillerman, president of original programming and development for AMC and SundanceTV, as reported by Deadline. “We are thrilled to be collaborating with Dave Erickson and David Wiener on another piece of original content. Watching how they’ll bring one of these new characters to the second season of ‘Fear’ will be really exciting for viewers to follow.”

What did you think of the debut episode of Fear the Walking Dead: Flight 462? Will it continue to sate your thirst for all things Walking Dead or does leave something to be desired? Sound off in the comments below.

[Images via Fear the Walking Dead]