If there was any fear that Halloween night might have hurt ratings for The Walking Dead‘s opening episode, they can now be dispelled.

An estimated 5.3 million people tuned in and a cumulative viewership of 8.1 million for the 11:30pm and 1am rebroadcasts of the new AMC series — making it the highest delivery of any cable show premiere in 2010, according to the studio.

Clearly people loved what they saw and with AMC pairing the show with its Fearfest horror movie marathon, I’d be shocked if those numbers didn’t hold steady for following weeks as well.

And for those of you who are part of movie and television check-in service Miso, you may have noticed that The Walking Dead took the first and fourth highest spots on their trending programs list last night. (This is because there were two options to check in for this show.) The super viewing majority killed the number two trending program, which was game 4 of the World Series.

Check out the television ratings highlights after the jump and tell us what you thought of the episode.

Key Ratings Highlights for The Walking Dead:

* 10 pm airing – 3.7 HH rating with 5.3 million total viewers;
* 10 pm, 11:30 pm and 1am airings – Cumed to a 6.0 HH rating with 8.1 million viewers;
* Adults 25-54 – 3.1 million viewers;
* Adults 18-49 – 3.6 million viewers;
* Adults 18-34 – 2.1 million viewers.