8. It's All In The Details
As with all long-running shows, The Walking Dead survives not only for its commitment to characters and engaging, grand storylines, but also for its close attention to detail. That much is patently clear in the fact that the make-up team switched their gear for the start of Season 3, using darker skin tones for the Walkers to reflect that fact that they would be more decayed thanks to the progression of time. To preserve the authentic zombie behaviour, and to bring some sort of gruesome parity across all of the zombies, the production crew also set up a zombie school to put extras and supporting stars through, so that they could learn how to act, walk and move like zombies. The same actors would also eat together, staying separate from the live cast members, which probably has nothing to do with the fact that Andrew Lincoln and co have delicate stomachs, or are massive, irredeemable divas. And linked to the same point on dedication, the show's conviction to the idea that zombies can't breathe meant that provisions had to be made for the extreme cold filming conditions of episodes like "Beside The Dying Fire." The special effects team had to digitally remove all trace of water vapour emerging from actors' mouths, in order to retain the magic of the monsters.