‘The Walking Dead’ season 3 still dominates, even despite competition

What is incredible about seeing a show like “The Walking Dead” is not just that it is now the high-rated drama series on television; it’s also the fact that it is finding a way to keep its awesome reign of terror going during one of the busiest times of the year. We have not really touched on this too much in the past, but think about it: AMC’s zombie drama is up against such shows like “Dexter,” “Family Guy,” “The Good Wife,” and “The Real Housewives of Atlanta,” and there is also NFL football to worry about and this week, the American Music Awards.

Even in spite of all this, Sunday night’s new season 3 episode (which was relatively slow-moving, albeit still exciting) ended up scoring a 4.9 rating in the 18-49 demographic. While this does not equal the massive 5.7 rating that “The Big Bang Theory” drew for its new episode last week, it is still a shockingly good rating for a show with no real stars, and rather just a fanbase that is growing by the day.

One of the other reasons why “The Walking Dead” is continuing to defy expectations is simply that despite being three seasons in now, the quality continues to get better and better.  Just look back at the episode featuring the deaths of both T-Dog and Lori: it was one of the most gut-wrenching moments of the entire series thus far, and it was handled with the perfect combination of poignancy and gore that is now a part of the show’s signature tone.

As for another interesting note here, the repeat of this episode was actually up two-tenths versus the one airing last week on Sunday night. This makes the drop of last week’s 5.6 for its first a little less glaring.

Why do you think that this show is in particular still drawing so many viewers?