AMC’s smash hit zombie thriller ‘The Walking Dead’ will conclude its second season this Sunday with a dramatic episode set to deal with the fallout from last week’s cliffhanger.

In the most recent episode, “Better Angels”, Shane (Jon Bernthal) was killed off before immediately reanimating as a zombie without coming into contact with one – which the series had previously intimated was the sole way of transforming into one. This has led fans to ponder if all of the surviving characters are already infected with the deadly condition that has being driving the series’ main storylines since its very first episode, and an answer is expected to be given in this Sunday’s episode.

As for the other cliffhanger from the March 11 episode, the last scene showed dozens of zombies making their way toward the farm where the characters have been staying for the majority of this season, setting up a probable confrontation and potential character deaths in the much-hyed season ender.

Jon Bernthal’s exit from the series last week, when his character Shane was killed during a confrontation with Rick (played by Andrew Lincoln) came as little surprise to fans of the comic book series on which the television is based, as Shane was originally killed off much earlier in the story.

For fans of the television series who were unaware of the narrative timeline in the comic books, Shane’s death also came as a relatively minor shock, following the announcement in January that Bernthal was set to join the cast of ‘L.A. Noir’, a new series from Frank Darabont, who was in fact ‘The Walking Dead”s original show-runner until disagreements with the network led to his departure from the series last summer.

As for the remaining actors on the series, there have been no announcements about any of them joining new television projects, leaving the fates of their characters in this week’s finale unknown. However, the death of Bernthal’s character came just one episode after the death of fellow original cast member Jeffrey DeMunn’s character Dale, leading fans to speculate that the season finale could mark the most severe loss of life yet.

‘The Walking Dead’ already centred its mid-season finale around the revelation that the series’ youngest survivor from the pilot – Sophia, played by Madison Lintz – had died and transformed into a zombie, forcing group leader Rick to execute her in front of her mother Carol.

The relatively high number of on-screen deaths in recent week has been welcomed by some fans, after the first half of the season was criticised for being too slow-paced and lacking any particularly gripping storylines.

In spite of these criticisms, ‘The Walking Dead’ has continued to perform well in the ratings, maintaining its status as AMC’s number one program. Season-to-date, ‘The Walking Dead’ has averaged 6.7 million viewers per week over its 12 airings, up more than 20% compared to the 5.2 million average it received for its 6-episode first season. AMC has has given the series a vote of confidence by renewing it for a 16-episode third season.

This increased episode order makes ‘The Walking Dead’ one of only two series on AMC, the other being ‘Breaking Bad’, to go beyond the network’s standard 13-episode order, a standard still in place for ‘The Killing’ and its Emmy-favourite veteran ‘Mad Men’, which will take over ‘The Walking Dead”s time-slot when it returns for its fifth season on March 25.

As for whether ‘The Walking Dead’ will end its season on a cliffhanger or hint at what the characters will face in the future, fans have only a few more days left to wait and see.

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‘The Good Wife’ broke the CBS mould when it debuted in September 2009. Airing on a network which thrives on formulaic, franchise-friendly procedurals such as ‘CSI’, ‘Criminal Minds’, and ‘NCIS’, ‘The Good Wife’ represented a more hybridised type of drama than CBS was used to, with the series’ weekly, self-contained legal cases operating as a counter-balance to ongoing, character-driven storylines.

However, despite its departure from the CBS norm, ‘The Good Wife’ has developed into network television’s most critically lauded show while attracting a consistently high calibre of well-respected guest stars, ranging from Michael. J Fox and Mamie Gummer to recent additions Lisa Edelstein and Matthew Perry. The series has received multiple award nominations, including a Peabody Award for Excellence in 2010, and Emmy, Golden Globe, and consecutive Screen Actors Guild wins for its star Julianna Margulies.

Now in its third season, ‘The Good Wife’, which is set in Chicago but shot in New York, has delved deeper into the personal lives of several of its characters while still interweaving numerous social and political contexts in a manner not seen in any other network or cable drama.

Initially centred around Alicia Florrick, the humiliated wife of Illinois’ disgraced State’s Attorney, ‘The Good Wife’ has since evolved into an ensemble offering, exploring such issues as: political campaigning, inter-office power struggles, judicial bribery, economic woes, and technology’s growing impact in every facet of the professional and domestic spheres.

This season began with Alicia (Margulies) having separated from her husband Peter (Chris Noth) following his re-election as State’s Attorney and the discovery that he had had a sexual encounter with Kalinda Sharma (Emmy Award winner Archie Panjabi), the in-house investigator at Alicia’s law firm and Alicia’s closest friend.

In turn, Alicia embarked on a relationship with Will Gardner (Josh Charles), a senior partner at the firm, and was forced to work directly with her husband’s political campaigner Eli Gold (Alan Cumming) after she had used him as a political contact to beat out fellow attorney Cary Agos (Matt Czuchry) for a job.

Agos later defected to the State’s Attorney’s Office, where he now works alongside Alicia’s husband and has been promoted to the position of Deputy State’s Attorney. Observing all of this is Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski), the firm’s other senior partner and a staunch Democrat, whose Liberal convictions often clash with the needs and requirements of surviving in the legal field.

Reflecting on all of this, it is quite clear that ‘The Good Wife’ has moved far away from its original premise of a scorned ex-wife returning to the workplace. Now, it juggles multiple story arcs and long-simmering narrative tensions which could very well be overwhelming to the casual viewer accustomed to the plethora of modern day procedurals.

The series’ producers – led by husband/wife duo Robert and Michelle King, and supported by feature film heavyweights Ridley and Tony Scott – have stayed so committed to making ‘The Good Wife’ a multi-layered saga that it is now typically the only network drama to receive recognition at the major television award ceremonies.

Ironically, it is also one of CBS’ lowest-rated series and has yet to secure a syndication deal, despite it approaching its fourth year of production.

This divide between its critical reception and commercial performance is perhaps indicative of television’s growing trend towards targeting niche audiences in an effort to combat all-encompasing audience declines, with a series such as ‘NCIS’ regularly attracting 20 million viewers and zero critical acclaim, while a series such as ‘Mad Men’ rarely attracts 3 million viewers yet has won the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series four years in a row. Thus, with a season-to-date average of 10.35 million viewers, ‘The Good Wife’ finds itself in something of a middle-ground position.

On-screen, however, the series is not concerning itself with the business side of television productions. Just eight episodes remain this season, and in that run of episodes audiences are expected to see: Alicia’s decision about whether to persevere with a divorce from her husband, and the personal and professional fallout which that would in turn trigger; Eli’s plans to have Peter run for governorship; and most interestingly the inter-office power struggles which are now certain to arise following Will’s six-month disbarment for stealing money from a client’s account.

In recent episodes, the writers have explored the current civil unrest in Syria, potential prejudices in military law, institutional manipulation in the United States Treasury Department, and prosecutorial complications arising from Chinese diplomatic immunity. As a result of engaging in such socially-volatile debates, it seems appropriate for ‘The Good Wife’ to step back and explore more insular conflicts of greater personal importance to the characters.

Yet, with its fearlessness over broaching so many hot-button issues on a mainstream network landscape, ‘The Good Wife’ seems certain to join the likes of ‘The Wire’ and ‘The West Wing’ as one of America’s most culturally resonant television dramas of the twenty-first century.

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