On Halloween night 2010, a TV show would air for the first time and change horror forever. Over the course of 11 seasons, The Walking Dead, which was developed by Frank Darabont and based on the comic book series by Robert Kirkman, would become a franchise, make tons of moolah, and launch several spinoffs. However, what it did in 2010 that no horror TV show had done before is convert a whole lot of regular TV-watching joes into obsessed horror fans who tuned in every single week for more gore.
When did ‘The Walking Dead’ series premiere
The original pilot episode of The Walking Dead, titled “Days Gone Bye,” aired on October 31, 2010, on AMC. The series premiered to a whopping 5.35 million viewers that night, too, making it the most-watched AMC television series premiere episode of its time. From that night on, The Walking Dead would become something special.
What made ‘The Walking Dead’ different?
Zombies were nothing new for die-hard horror fans and comic book enthusiasts. They’d made many a modern smash at the box office too, with movies like 28 Days Later (2002) and Zombieland (2009). But The Walking Dead certainly launched a modern zombie television boom in living rooms across America — one like we’d never seen before.
It made horror fans out of non-horror fans
In early October 2010, I would have told you I didn’t care a lick about zombies and never would. But that changed on Halloween night 2010. From the minute we walked alongside Sheriff Rick Grimes and came face to face with the zombie “teddy bear girl,” I was in, and I would watch every single week. I needed to know how, why, what? And do zombies really carry teddy bears? (No, they don’t, but I’ve forgiven them for that wild mischaracterization.) But right then and there, more than 5 million of us were hooked.
It pulled us in with characters (zombies were just a bonus!)
The character development certainly didn’t show up in Episode 1 — you had to come back every week for it. But even in the beginning, there were bright twinkles of characters we just needed to know better. There was a captivating storyline we had to follow. There was the thread of a mysterious zombie apocalypse we just had to figure out.
Sure, Rick gets shot (twice) in the first 15 minutes of the pilot, which made us wonder how long this guy was really going to last, but we had to know. Why was he left all alone in that hospital? What happened to his buddy Shane? What about Rick’s wife and kid? Would he find them?
It had a hell of a cast we loved and loved to hate
Forever favorites from the original season’s cast included: Andrew Lincoln (Rick Grimes), Jon Bernthal (Shane Walsh), Lennie James (Morgan Jones), Steven Yeun (Glenn Rhee), and Norman Reedus (Daryl Dixon). There were also plenty we loved to hate, including Sarah Wayne Callies (Lori Grimes) and Laurie Holden (Andrea). And more amazing actors would follow — hello, Lauren Cohan (Maggie Greene) and Danai Gurira (Michonne). These stellar actors made us root for them and carried us through TWD — and several went on to bigger things after this show.
It made humans scarier than zombies
A mob of zombies is pretty scary, but that’s not what the show ultimately revealed. The story that The Walking Dead told us best week after week was that the walkers are not the ones to fear. It was the human beings fighting for survival. Some held on to their humanity, but others lost theirs and became the true monsters.
All 11 seasons of The Walking Dead are available for streaming on Netflix (subscription fees apply).