I do, however, like the slow pace. It’s a nice break from the zippy, sprint-to-the-next-commercial-break speed of so much of current TV. I liked that Season 2 took its time working up to a great mid-season payoff; it came as a real emotional explosion, and it wouldn’t have worked as well without the build-up. I like my zombies slow and shambling – I’m fed up of the Zack Snyder/Danny Boyle running zombies. The zombie USP is the terror of the mob you can’t reason with, the fear of getting overrun by a crowd: that is much more potent as a creeping sense of dread, and far more allegorically compelling, too, if you want to read into the zombie phenomenon. They’ve occupied my nightmares for decades, as has the emptied landscape, the abandoned city. I like that TWD doesn’t pull back and give that wider context: I’m constantly filling in those gaps inside my head. And think how tiresome the show would get if they kept cutting away to news reports. It’s far more grim and unnerving not knowing how much of the world is still alive.

I am getting a little tired of the killings. I know that’s a bit weird to say about a zombie apocalypse show, but often I feel that the slaughter of the zombies is needlessly inventive, elaborate and squelchy, like I’ve stumbled into a make-up artists’ convention. Greg Nicotero is all over this, and his gleeful excesses work against the gravity of the drama sometimes.