The season 4 premier of The Walking Dead will be aired twice this Monday (Feb. 10) on FOX, once at 11:35 a.m. and once again at 8:55 p.m. The second half of season 4 will be shown in Parallel Play on FOX, where the episodes are shown on the same day as the U.S. release date.

The last season ended with the reappearance of The Governor, who dreams of conquering the prison so that his newfound family can live there. In the ensuing battle, the inhabitant survivors are scattered after the prison is destroyed and overrun with walkers.

Fans of the Walking Dead who are familiar with the comic book will recognize Carl's story arc, although the comic book moves slower and is funnier and darker. Walking Dead has evolved from its beginning in 2010 when it was more existential (remember the deer that was a metaphor for life and the conversations with God?) in a six-episode season which featured very occasional zombie attacks to pick up the pace.   

The original version of The Walking Dead was gone by the second half of the season, when AMC replaced Frank Darabont with Glen Mazzara due to budget issues (they were unwilling to make changes to Mad Men or Breaking Bad) but the details aren't completely known.  After being pushed out of the show during the show's season 2 run, Frank Darabont took legal action against AMC, in a lawsuit claiming he and his talent agency was denied "tens of millions of dollars of profits" from the television series.

Although The Walking Dead is good at visual storytelling, it is weaker on dialogue and story arc. Entertainment Weekly has criticized the leisurely pace for feeling "listless, boring."

It also points to a deeper problem: "The Walking Dead seems to really love its characters without quite understanding its characters. There's a sequence in the midseason premiere which should nominally tell us more about Michonne but which instead confirms that there might not be much more to Michonne. The episode forces Carl to act petulant and dismissive, which feels a bit reductive in the context of the apocalyptic events he just experienced."