When the American television channel AMC announced a new series about the zombie apocalypse at the ComicCon in San Diego in July 2010, some people may have dismissed the whole thing as a somewhat strained attempt to attract attention in the so-called third golden age of American television.

AMC had trumped with series like "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad".

But now, of all things, zombies? The hideous undead, who feed on the flesh of the living and are best rendered harmless by destroying their brains, were not by chance a favorite subject of the splatter genre to date. Hardly anyone could imagine that this should be suitable for the masses.

Not even close. Now that the series ends in season 11, it has carved out a central place in the American pop culture pantheon. The television series has, at least in terms of audience success, "Breaking Bad" and "Mad Men", in some cases even "Game of Thrones", in the shade and has grown into a franchise worth millions. There are now two offshoots, “Fear the Walking Dead” (season seven starts in autumn) and “The Walking Dead: World Beyond” (since 2020), as well as an accompanying talk show called “Talking Dead”, plus video games and soundtracks. At least one more series with fan favorites Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Carol (Melissa McBride) is in the works for 2023,a Hollywood film about Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), who disappeared in season nine, already announced in 2019, keeps fans in suspense with ever further delays.

He wakes up, the chaos is here

The series started with law enforcement officer Rick Grimes, who is seriously injured during an operation.

When he wakes up from his coma, he is presented with a horror picture: A zombie apocalypse has devastated the world, small groups of survivors hide from the hungry hordes of the undead and try to find their way through somehow.

These groups keep losing members and gaining new ones;

they compete for the remaining resources and ally or war with one another.

Central questions include who to trust and who not, how to outsmart the zombies that are attracted to noise and human smell, what skills to serve the group with, and how to get food, water, and weapons.

The survivors suffer horrific losses all the time, and it is often necessary to decide whether to sacrifice companions, family members and friends or even to “redeem” them - as it turns out, not only those who are bitten become zombies, but thanks to widespread infection all people after their death.

The outer destruction of the world in "The Walking Dead" is soon mirrored by an inner one, which the characters are desperately trying to control.

The zombies are just a background

"The Walking Dead" is based on the comics of the same name by Robert Kirkman and the cartoonists Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard, which ended in 2019 with the 193rd issue. Although the comics depict the fight against zombies with some attention to hideous detail, they actually revolve around more fundamental questions, such as: How can the survivors of an ongoing catastrophe preserve their humanity? “The zombies,” Kirkman said when introducing the series, “are just background music. They add tension to the drama - what is important is what happens to the human characters. "