Warning: This post—and likely its comment thread—contain speculation and potential spoilers.
The Walking Dead is many things to many different people—compelling, gory, frustrating, mind-numbing, pioneering for its genre on TV—but it's never dull. Season three comes to an end this Sunday, and there are as many thickening plots off camera as there are on it. Some major TV recappers have sworn off the show completely for its nihilism. And when AMC renewed the series, showrunner Glen Mazzara resigned over a "difference of opinion" about which direction the series should go. This triggered major backlash from the creative community, with Kurt Sutter of Sons of Anarchy saying AMC disrespects writers and Shawn Ryan of The Shield wondering aloud why anyone would sell a good show to the network.
No matter where anyone stands on these issues (or on the show itself, promise we're getting there), The Walking Dead inevitably powers forward like its signature, unrelenting walkers. S3 was the highest rated season to date, besting shows like American Idol and The Big Bang Theory in the 18-49 demographic last fall and scoring the most watched single episode in broadcast this year (the premier of this season's second half). If you want to taunt an NBC programming exec, ask where the zombie series' talk show spin-off Talking Dead would rank among their network's offerings. Not bad for a comic-adaptation, right?
Read 18 remaining paragraphs | CommentsThe Walking Dead is many things to many different people—compelling, gory, frustrating, mind-numbing, pioneering for its genre on TV—but it's never dull. Season three comes to an end this Sunday, and there are as many thickening plots off camera as there are on it. Some major TV recappers have sworn off the show completely for its nihilism. And when AMC renewed the series, showrunner Glen Mazzara resigned over a "difference of opinion" about which direction the series should go. This triggered major backlash from the creative community, with Kurt Sutter of Sons of Anarchy saying AMC disrespects writers and Shawn Ryan of The Shield wondering aloud why anyone would sell a good show to the network.
No matter where anyone stands on these issues (or on the show itself, promise we're getting there), The Walking Dead inevitably powers forward like its signature, unrelenting walkers. S3 was the highest rated season to date, besting shows like American Idol and The Big Bang Theory in the 18-49 demographic last fall and scoring the most watched single episode in broadcast this year (the premier of this season's second half). If you want to taunt an NBC programming exec, ask where the zombie series' talk show spin-off Talking Dead would rank among their network's offerings. Not bad for a comic-adaptation, right?
On with the show...
Now, is all the attention paid to the show merited by what happens in it? While opinions can certainly change if this weekend's episode, "Welcome to the Tombs," is a clunker, S3 as a whole is The Walking Dead's most interesting to date.
DIGITAL JUICE
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