The Walking Dead (TV Series)

The Walking Dead is an American horror television drama series developed by Frank Darabont. It is based on the Comic Series of the same name by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard.

The series stars Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes, a police officer who gets shot in the line of duty and awakens from a coma to find the world dominated by the walking dead. He sets out to find his family and encounters many other survivors along the way. The title of the series refers to the survivors, and not the zombies, though it could equally be taken to mean both the survivors and the zombies.

In September 2013, a spin-off series was announced by AMC. Dave Erickson, writer and producer of AMC's Low Winter Sun, is confirmed to be the showrunner. In March 2014, Robert Kirkman has noted that the new series is not technically a spin-off, because none of the characters from the TV Series will be involved. Kirkman also said that the new series will be unrelated to the comics, different characters, different location.

Development
Many networks were approached by producers Gale Anne Hurd, Frank Darabont, and Robert Kirkman, among them well-known ones like NBC and HBO, though all of them refused to accept the show due its extremely violent and gory story. Some even going as far as proposing a "story without zombies".

Eventually, AMC took the show. In March 2010, it was announced that it ordered 6 episodes to be filmed. The filming began on the fifteenth of May, 2010. The episodes debuted on AMC on October 31, 2010.

Executive Producer Frank Darabont said that the TV Series was not intended to be a miniseries. AMC ordered 13 episodes for the second season. The second season debuted on October 16, 2011 at 9 p.m. with a 90 minute premiere episode "What Lies Ahead".

Frank Darabont was released from being the showrunner and replaced by Glen Mazzara (writer of the episode "Wildfire" in the first season). Darabont's departure has been surrounded in controversy, with magazine articles claiming that it was due to either a strained relationship with AMC, his failure to conform to the schedule of a TV series, or most likely due to the show's budget reduction despite commercial success.

Glen Mazzara, the showrunner for Season 2 and Season 3, was replaced by executive producer Scott Gimple. Mazzara had cited creative differences with the drama and departed the series in late December 2012 after season 3 had wrapped production. Gimple took over as showrunner for Season 4.

In response to a question:
 * "says that the show will be deliberately pushed into a storyline that is nothing like the comics. Can you confirm or deny this?"


 * Kirkman - "BIG denial. We will never completely abandon the comic as source material on the TV show. There's already another 4 seasons of material at least, in the comics always doing new material."

Season 6
Season 6 was announced on October 7, 2014 by AMC.

Cast and Characters
This is a list of the main characters in The Walking Dead, in order of living status.
 * -|Main Cast=

Supporting Cast
This is a list of the supporting cast in The Walking Dead, in order of living status.

This is a list of co-stars in The Walking Dead, not in order.
 * -|Co-Stars=

This is a list of the notable uncredited cast in The Walking Dead, in order of first appearance.
 * -|Uncredited=

Reception
The show currently scores 85 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 25 reviews, indicating Universal acclaim. In a cover article Entertainment Weekly called The Walking Dead "The Best New Show on TV". Nancy deWolf Smith from The Wall Street Journal said that the "pilot episode [is] so good that it has hooked even a zombie hater like me." She said that what made the show so good was that it feels real and looks cinematic. Heather Havrilesky of Salon.com included the show on their list of 9 new TV shows to not miss, giving it a grade of "A", with the author saying "A film-quality drama series about zombies? Somebody pinch me!"

Based on 24 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, the first season of The Walking Dead received an average 96% overall "Certified Fresh" approval rating; the website's consensus states, "Blood-spattered, emotionally resonant, and white-knuckle intense, The Walking Dead puts an intelligent spin on the overcrowded zombie sub genre".

Based on 21 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, the second season of The Walking Dead received an average 90% overall "Certified Fresh" approval rating; the website's consensus states, "The second season of The Walking Dead fleshes out the characters while maintaining the grueling tension and gore that made the show a hit."

Based on 28 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, the third season of The Walking Dead received an average 96% overall "Certified Fresh" approval rating; the website's consensus states, "The palpable terror and visceral thrills continue in the third season of The Walking Dead, along with a deeper sense of the people who inhabit its apocalyptic landscape."

The pilot received 5.3 million viewers, making it the most-watched premiere episode of any AMC television series.

The season 2 premiere and encore received a total of 11 million viewers, the rest of the season continues to break records around the world.

The season 3 premiere garnered a record-breaking 10.9 million viewers, and together with its encore, the premiere was watched by 15.2 million viewers, making this the most-watched episode of The Walking Dead, to date.

The season 4 premiere garnered cable record-breaking numbers, averaging 16.11 million U.S. viewers. This beats out the season three finale, "Welcome to the Tombs," which was viewed by 12.42 million, for the most viewed episode of The Walking Dead.