After seeing the trailer for AMC's new show The Walking Dead, I'm wondering: Are TV audiences really ready for Zombieland, The Series?

Its pedigree is impressive. Shawshank Redemption/Green Mile director Frank Darabont and producer Gale Anne Hurd from the Terminator movies. It's based on a popular comic book. And recent films like Zombieland and The Crazies shows there's a little -- forgive the pun -- life left in zombie flicks.

But will folks return, week after week, to watch a cop who wakes after an unexpected gunshot wound to discover zombies have taken over the world? Even if he's embarked on a heart-rending quest to find his wife and kid?

Debuting on Oct. 31 -- Halloween, of course! -- the series also leaves me wondering how it fits in AMC's profolio of brainy, subversive series such as Mad Men, Breaking Bad and Rubicon. Perhaps with so many critically regarded brain busting originals, the onetime old movie channel is swinging for its version of a broad hit.

Here's hoping they cue up a festival of George Romero's Dawn of the Dead flicks to lead into this debut.