Andrew Lincoln

CHICAGO – Brutal. That’s the word for the third season of “The Walking Dead.” It’s just brutal. Like the second season of the mega-hit show, the third sagged a bit in the middle (although not as deeply as the neverending Shane-Dale debates of chapter 2) and the finale was a bit disappointing, but the unpredictability of the season kept viewers on their toes and ratings high.

CHICAGO – One of the most popular cable series of the last three years will begin its third season on Sunday, October 14th. “The Walking Dead” emerges again on the AMC Network (9pm ET/8pm Central), as the “zombie apocalypse” within the show’s universe continues. Steven Yeun will be back as Glenn Rhee, part of a survivor group who are trying to hold their own against the “walkers” (zombies).

CHICAGO – I heard a chorus of complaints during the second season of AMC’s mega-hit “The Walking Dead” regarding the program’s pace and how it got weighed down by the soap opera involving Rick (Andrew Lincoln), Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) and Shane (Jon Bernthal).

CHICAGO – The second season of “The Walking Dead” displayed a few of the growing pains of a smash hit series both coming to terms with its own voice after a mini-first season and losing its high-profile showrunner in Frank Darabont. There were some tonal inconsistencies and some repetitive dialogue writing in the first half of the 13-episode season.

CHICAGO – The differences between the series premiere and the second-season premiere of AMC’s “The Walking Dead,” airing tonight on what has become the most critically-acclaimed network on basic cable, are striking. Frank Darabont brought an old-fashioned horror showman’s sensibility to the first episode, but that season had a different purpose.

CHICAGO – The series premiere of AMC’s “The Walking Dead” was the best horror movie of 2010 and the best single episode of television that year. Director Frank Darabont (“The Shawshank Redemption”) brilliantly distilled a lifetime of zombie fandom into one beautiful character-driven piece that not only provided the chills of the genre but proved that the series would be dramatically rich as well. The living were as interesting as the dead. And now the first season, only six episodes long, is available in a beautiful 2-disc Blu-ray set. Don’t miss one of the best shows of 2010.

CHICAGO – AMC has become a major player on the television scene thanks to the multiple awards won by “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad.” As they expanded this year with “Rubicon” and this weekend’s “The Walking Dead,” the question was whether or not the pool would be diluted as it got bigger.