TV Madness 2017: The Walking Dead and Call the Midwife face off in round one

We’re not sure that there are two shows taking part in our TV Madness 2017 tournament who are more different than The Walking Dead and Call the Midwife. You have in one case one of the biggest comic adaptations of the modern era, a grisly zombie drama with lots of death and destruction. On the other hand, you’ve got a British period drama featuring midwives during the sixties, desperate to help women welcome children to the world.

If there is one thing that they have in common, it’s that people do occasionally die on Call the Midwife, as well. It tends to just happen to be a little less brutal when people do go. These two shows will be fighting it out to advance in the next round, and while there is one clear underdog, we’ve also come to learn that anything can happen in this tournament when you get different fan bases engaged.

The Walking Dead (#1 seed) – This is a show that is dominant in almost everything that it does, and that’s what makes it taking part in this tournament so fun given that there is not really much of any guarantee that we’re going to see it do well here. To use an NCAA Tournament analogy (as we’re apt to do), this one is akin to a dominant team who wins almost every year coming in with too much confidence. There’s a chance that at some point along the way, it falls asleep at the wheel and other shows are able to move past it.

Call the Midwife (#8 seed) – On the flip side, what we’ve got here is a British drama that may be somewhat under-the-radar here in America, but is enormously popular on the other side of the world and with the support of a dedicated following. One of the things that it has going for it the most is the fact that so many people may want to vote for it just to see the zombie empire fall. It also does feature some wonderful performances … even if the stories are pretty heartbreaking at times.