Zombie Network of Amc

You don't need to be a devoted viewer of The Walking Dead to know that the surest way to stop a monster's relentless approach is to destroy its brain. This advice is not applicable in real life, of course. AMC, The Walking Dead's cable home, is living proof that playing dumb is the surest way to the winner's circle.

At least that's the way it seems today. Just two weeks removed from the celebratory clatter of Breaking Bad's finale — an episode that drew a series-record 10 million viewers, to say nothing of Heisenbergian levels of advertising revenue — AMC is basking in the demographic-devouring supremacy of The Walking Dead. The Season 4 premiere drew a staggering 16 million viewers this past Sunday, a number that isn't just nuts for cable (although, as the highest-rated scripted show in basic cable history, it's plenty nuts), it's straight macadamias for the industry as a whole: With fully half of the audience in the advertiser-craved 18-49 age range, The Walking Dead's premiere is now the most-watched broadcast in that demo in 2013.1 Make no mistake: These are ratings any network boss would eat his family to duplicate — whether he was infected or not.

So why is the smell of rot and putrefaction emanating so strongly from AMC's corporate offices this week? The answer is a familiar one: hunger. Nothing stimulates the appetite for success like success and, apart from The Walking Dead, it's clear to all that AMC is well and truly starving.2 Breaking Bad, despite Jeffrey Katzenberg's best efforts, is gone for good. The Killing is finally, mercifully, dead. Hell on Wheels came grinding to an ugly halt. (If a show falls on a Saturday night, does anyone hear it? Answer: No.) And Low Winter Sun set so disastrously that daylight seems further away than ever. Despite the frantic goalpost-moving of a cynical network, Mad Men will have to end someday. The inevitable creative crash can be delayed for only so long. Two years ago, when The Walking Dead debuted to a...