The Walking Dead is TV’s biggest show by at least one metric

By Erik Adams | February 22, 2013 | 6:00pm

TV Features TV

TV Club Power Rankings are The A.V. Club’s way of demystifying television ratings—while also claiming some of the authority of those ratings for ourselves. The power rankings formula pulls the numbers from TV’s most-trusted ratings source, Nielsen, and combines them with our own community and editorial metrics. It’s not a method of predicting what TV shows will be canceled or renewed, but it does demonstrate the series that have staying power in the eyes of The A.V. Club and its readers.

A confirmation of The Walking Dead’s world-conquering status that goes beyond the borders of Norman Reedus’ Instagram feed, the show notched its first TV Club Power Rankings victory this week, inching ever closer to becoming (as those photos attest) The Beatles of zombie-apocalypse dramas. Rocketing past geek-baiting rival The Big Bang Theory, “Home” found a place to call its own atop the power rankings top 10—a first for a cable program, as well as a first for any show in which two brothers discuss the dark spots of their childhood while the horrible, flesh-eating truth of their adulthood stares them straight in the eyes. (Their delicious, gooey, undead-life-sustaining eyes.) The show earns this distinction in spite of total viewership numbers and an adults 18-49 rating lower than those of the show’s midseason première; credit the assist to St. Valentine, who stole a chunk of the viewership from The Walking Dead’s most formidable opponents. Thursday night typically dominates the power rankings, but its major contenders were mostly down or even this week due to Valentine’s Day fall-off—with the notable exception of Elementary, up a tick from the previous week. Clearly this will not be the last time The Walking Dead benefits from imagery focusing on the human heart.