Brain Food: AMC Releases Six-Episode Season of 'The Walking Dead' on DVD; Cast Chats About Show at Paleyfest (Watch the Interview)

AMC today released the entire six-episode first season of “The Walking Dead,” the popular zombie drama show based on the comic book series by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard, and directed by three-time Academy® Award-nominee Frank Darabont.

The boxed set will include behind-the-scenes featurettes, as well as extra footage, and will sell for $49.99 for Blu-Ray and $39.98 for the DVD.

While it has a relatively short run, “The Walking Dead” is one of the most successful programs AMC has ever produced.

The pilot received 5.3 million viewers, making it the most-watched premiere episode of any AMC television series (and that includes a little show you might have heard of called “Mad Men”).

The show was also a rather immediate (and well-deserved) critical success, and was recently nominated for awards from the WGA, the Golden Globes and the 2011 Saturn Awards.

Like a blessing from the zombie gods, AMC announced in November that there would be a second season of the show consisting of 13 episodes. Frank Darabont said at this week’s PaleyFest event that production will start in May of this year.

According to Executive Producer Gale Anne Hurd in a recent Entertainment Weekly interview, the show is likely to return to the air in October 2011, and that "every one of the principal cast is signed up for multiple seasons."

In an interview with IGN, “The Walking Dead” comic book creator Robert Kirkman mentioned that in that the second season of the series, he hoped they would be able to introduce new characters from the books like “Michonne, Tyrese and Hershel,” though he promised that “there will always be divergences from the comic story to keep people on their toes.”

Like the first drop of blood a zombie tastes, the six-episode first season of "The Walking Dead" only whet our appetities for more. Luckily, there are a boatload of comics to read from the series, because October simply can't come fast enough.

The cast and creators of “The Walking Dead” showed up at Paleyfest in Los Angeles this week. Watch the video of the panel discussion.