Zombies are everywhere. They’re in your movies, in your video games, in your Jane Austen, in your head (in your head) – and then some brilliant young mind decided that we needed a zombie-based television series. Wonderful – really, great job everybody. Way to keep those fresh ideas coming. Except The Walking Dead might be the franchise to put this whole ‘undead’ craze to rest for a while.

You know how sometimes people pitch shows to you by listing their positive qualities – ‘drama, action, suspense’? Well I will do that for you except my list only has one thing on it: the director from Shawshank Redemption. If that isn’t enough for you, then maybe we should start seeing other people.

Well, that’s not entirely fair – I can understand how watching a bunch of mindless corpses dragging themselves across the screen looking for flesh to feast on can be less than entertaining for some; it’s why many of us don’t follow politics (rimshot). But The Walking Dead is something special – as evidence by its 5.3 million-viewer premier, and the fact that it got renewed for another season right after the second episode screened.

Something something 'axe you a question'

The Walking Dead is a weird show, really. It’s based on a hit comic book, it’s filmed in cinema-quality, it makes limited use of cheap scares – odd for a zombie show – and there aren’t any big names attached; the most familiar face is Sarah Wayne Callies, from Prison Break. And I bet you’ve forgotten what her face looks like by now. Don’t worry, it’s pretty much the same.

But the show is good; I’m not talking weak-story-and-sexy-vampires good, I mean this show has legs. Corpsified zombie legs. The trailer’s up above – go check that sucker out. It’s funny, it’s smart, and it’s big on human emotion for a show that hires dozens of extras to play Defaced Corpse 27. Thanks to the way The Walking Dead is raising the bar on zombie productions, the next film to throw some weakly-conceived undead dudes at us is probably going to tank – which means we might be able to bury this sucker after all.

The Walking Dead airs in South Africa on Tuesdays, 21:20, on Top TV. In case you kids haven’t figured out how to watch these things on the interwebs yet.

[Image via AMC]