After such favourable preview responses, it's no surprise that Walking Dead season 3 absolutely smashed rating records, beating itself last year - ratings for which rose 50% on 2011 - and all other premieres of this fall so far. According to E!Online the total number of viewers, including the later showing at 12am, rose to a high of 15.2million.

Charlie Collier, president of the network that broadcasts The Walking Dead - starring Andrew Lincoln, said: "Thank you to the fans for making The Walking Dead such a tremendous success. We are honored and humbled that television's largest adult audience resides on AMC." He spoke of all the hard work that goes into making something so successful, saying: "So many people on both sides of the camera worked tirelessly on this project, and I thank and congratulate each of them for their amazing contribution.”

Even with such an extraordinary number of people tuning in, there could have been more yet. Sadly Dish Network, an American cable TV provider, is embroiled with an ongoing dispute with AMC and so none of Dish's subscribers could check in at all. AMC tried to make it available to stream online for Dish subscribers, but the site crashed due to an overwhelming rate of traffic.

The only thing to out-do The Walking Dead on cable this fall has been sport. However, as some would argue, zombie killing has become a sport almost in its own rite (COD springs to mind here). The show's fantastic success comes as no surprise. Reviews so far have all been very positive and the Huffington Post went as far as to say “If the first two hours are any indication, Season 3 of "The Walking Dead" may be the most satisfying year yet.”