‘The Walking Dead’ declared TV’s deadliest show
TV
Credit: AMC
AMC’s The Walking Dead is a show that deals with death in a big way. Hell, it’s all right there in the title. So it stands to reason that it would turn out to have among the highest body counts on TV. And now, as a result of funeral resource guide Funeralwise.com, we can now confirm that it actually has THE highest. Period.
In the site’s second annual “TV Body Count Study” examining the death toll on 40 TV series during the fall 2012 season, the hit zombie drama was king of the corpses, averaging a staggering 38 dead bodies per episode. Though 91% of these deaths were walkers, the series still topped steep competition from Cinemax’s Strike Back (26 dead bodies per hour, which was good enough for second place) and NBC’s breakout drama Revolution (with 11 per episode). Unlike the top show, Strike Back and Revolution’s deaths were all human (animals are apparently not counted in the survey).
In addition to the body count, the study revealed that guns were the primary weapon of choice in the deaths, accounting for 44% of all fatalities, followed by knives, at 19%.
The study also broke down the victims by gender, with men representing 86% of the dearly departed, while women were most likely to be killed by means other than a gun.
Two last tidbits: first, the number of onscreen funerals increased this year from eight to 11 (I consider that a minor miracle, given the high volume of character deaths on major shows this year). Second, and perhaps most surprisingly, last year’s top two deadliest series were nowhere to be found on this year’s list: Starz’s Spartacus and HBO’s Game of Thrones.
The complete study is available here: Funeralwise.com
