One of the great things about the Internet is its ability to give readers, bloggers, critics, commenters, Facebookers and Tweeters alike a place to complain. Most of our real worlds are vastly different from our Internet worlds: The guy who sits in the cubicle next to you probably goes on about “Jersey Shore” while the woman who lives across the hall won’t shut up about “Real Housewives.” Your family members probably have never heard of “Community” or “Shameless” or “Game of Thrones” or “Justified,” so we turn to the Internet to vent. It’s harmless b*tchery, but it’s nice to be around others who have at least seen the same television shows, if not share similar opinions.

“The Walking Dead” is one of those shows many of us LOVE to complain about and for good reason: It’s slow, the acting is wooden, and the character development is poor. But that doesn’t mean we’re going to stop watching it. What would we have to complain about otherwise?

Our frustrations with “The Walking Dead” unite us.

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There is some major casting news in this post that may spoil upcoming episodes of “The Walking Dead,” so if you’re not keen on being spoilered, skedaddle.

Frank Darabont, who has long had a reputation for working with the same set of actors, is currently developing a series for TNT called “LA Noir,” which takes place in 1940′s L.A. and will chronicle the battle between the LAPD and mobster Mickey Cohen. While the show itself sound compelling, the more interesting development here is that Darabont is wooing Jon Bernthal for the lead role of a gumshoe detective, and Jon Bernthal likewise is interested in that role.

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I will spare you the saga of how this news was uncovered — except to properly credit CraveOnline and Ain’t It Cool News for needling it out of Frank Darabont — but I will say this: If it had followed Frank Darabont’s original plan (before he was fired), the first episode of season two of “The Walking Dead” could’ve been amazing, better than any other episode this season.

In a letter to AICN, Darabont revealed those plans for the opening episode, and it would’ve been epic.

The opener allegedly flashbacks to the early days of the zombie apocalypse. The entire episode would have tracked a squad of Army Rangers dropping into Atlanta. They get trapped in a zombie outbreak. “All they have to do is travel maybe a dozen blocks, a simple journey, but what starts as a no-brainer scenario goes from ‘the city is being secured’ to ‘holy sh*t, we’ve lost control, the world is ending,’” Darabont describes in a letter to AICN. So, yeah — Black Hawk Down with zombies.

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Yesterday, following the news of “The Walking Dead’s” blockbuster ratings, I said it was only a matter of time until we had more zombie television series. In this case, “a matter of time” means “already in development,” as Vulture reports that the 2009 movie Zombieland is being adapted as a half-hour series by Fox, with original writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick onboard.

We hear talks are well under way with Fox Broadcasting and Columbia’s sister unit, Sony Pictures Television, to put the zom-com into development for the 2012-13 season. If it happens, it will actually be sort of fitting.

As Zombieland producer Gavin Polone noted, “The original plan for this was to make it as a TV show.” Indeed, CBS actually ordered a pilot script for the concept all the way back in 2005, “but they did what networks do, which is to take all the good stuff out.” [...]

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Quick! To the Genocycle!

I’ve got two TV news stories and only one allotted post for them, so you’re getting them both: (1) “Sons of Anarchy” has been renewed for a fifth season, and (2) “The Walking Dead” season premiere broke its own ratings records.

“It is no small challenge to bring the themes of a great, ancient play like Hamlet into a wholly original television setting and to tell this complex story in a way that is both riveting and accessible to a broad audience,” network President John Landgraf said… This season has been averaging 5.8 million viewers, with the premiere episode the most-watched program in the network’s history. [TV Guide]

7.3 million zombie lovers tuned in, shattering all previous records for the show and dramatically improving on last year’s series premiere tune-in of 5.3 million. The story was even better for AMC in the key demo of adults 18 to 49, where the show averaged 4.8 million viewers under 50 and scored a 3.8 rating — bigger than just about everything else on network TV Sunday, save for NFL football. [Vulture]

It’s so weird that these shows are doing so well on cable, considering that they’re not cop shows on TNT. But if I’ve learned anything from following the TV industry, it’s that nothing stays fresh for long before it’s copied poorly. So get ready for shows about zombie motorcycle gangs, shows about motorcycle gangs fighting zombies, and of course the new Discovery docuseries “Zombie Vs. Motorcycles.” Can’t wait!

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