The Walking Dead: zombies shuffle centre stage

by Owen Van Spall at The Guardian

Vampires, you may have noticed, have been having something of a television moment – what with Being Human, True Blood and The Vampire Diaries it’s been a fangtastic couple of years for viewers who like their TV with extra bite. But now there’s some supernatural competition on its way with AMC – the US channel that gave us the Emmy award-winning dramas Mad Men and Breaking Bad – soon to broadcast the first season of its new zombie apocalypse show The Walking Dead. An adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s ongoing comic series, the show will begin a run of six one-hour episodes in October in the US, and has been picked up by FX in the UK. The web is already buzzing with anticipation folllowing the recent premiere of the show’s trailer at Comic-Con in San Diego.

It’s surprisingly rare to see zombie-apocalypse dramas on TV. Unlike vampires, the poor zombie has been too often relegated to a bit player or a figure of fun. Charlie Brooker’s Dead Set recently paid homage to the zombie genre, but the show was ultimately a comedy – Kirkman’s explicit goal has been to make his zombie comic (which has reached an epic 75 issues so far) a more serious piece of work. In fact the comic has won an Eisner award for its serious, social commentary-approach to the zombie apocalypse concept, and focuses with documentary-like detail on the terrifying ordeals of a group of American survivors suffers from one day to the next. The tagline is: “In a world ruled by the dead, we are forced to finally start living”.

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‘Vampire Diaries’ Season 2: Will Jeremy Be A Vampire? ‘He’s Dead Inside, No Matter What’

by Jean Bentley at MTV News

Attention, “Vampire Diaries” fans: Only another 39 days until you can let out that breath you’ve been holding ever since you saw Jeremy Gilbert sprawled lifelessly across his bed in “The Vampire Diaries” season 1 finale. You’ll remember, of course, that the young Mr. Gilbert had just chased a vial of vampire blood with a big bottle o’ pills, and that if a human dies with vampire blood in his system, he’ll turn into a vamp himself.

According to executive producer and writer Kevin Williamson (who we chatted with during Comic-Con), once the second season premieres, we won’t have to wait very long to learn Jeremy’s fate. We’ll find out what happened “in the first act of the very first scene.”

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Francis Manapul’s TV Star Turn on Syfy’s BEAST LEGENDS

By Vaneta Rogers at Newsarama

It’s not unusual to hear that a comic book artist is working behind the scenes on a movie or TV show. But Francis Manapul is breaking taking it one step further by working in front of the camera, serving as a host on the new Syfy television series Beast Legends.

The show, which is already airing on History Television in Canada, premieres September 9th on Syfy with Manapul as a lead host. Combining fantasy with science, the show tracks down the truth about mythological creatures that could be real, and historical creatures that could be myths.

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I’m really looking forward to The Walking Dead. I’m also dying for the new season of Vampire Diaries to start–I had a dream about Elena and Stephan last night. There is SO much stuff coming out this fall that looks good, and now I’m kind of interested in Beast Legends. So I guess I’ll have to check it out.

What do you want to happen with Jeremy this season? What shows are you looking forward to this fall?