TV: Talking Dead

The production woes surrounding AMC's hit series, "The Walking Dead," have been well-documented. Showrunner Frank Darabont was dumped and the per-episode budget was slashed, as brutally as a zombie chomping on human flesh. Despite the turmoil, AMC decided to eke out a little more airtime from the show by throwing together a late night aftershow about TWD called "Talking Dead."

It's hosted by Chris Hardwick, but there are invariably in-studio celebrity guests (series creator Robert Kirkman usually makes an appearance, and past guests include Felicia Day and Patton Oswald). "Talking Dead" also takes the audience participation shtick to the max, soliciting questions from online viewers via chat, Twitter, and Facebook.

The show mostly comes across as an attempt to fill airtime, but there are occasionally interesting behind-the-scenes bits. For my part, I like seeing how the various special effects makeup gags in the show were done, and I found that the interviews with TWD cast are usually entertaining: