'Walking Dead' has big networks running scared

Good fences make good neighbors: Andrew Lincoln as zombie fighter Rick Grimes in a scene from the new season of AMC's "The Walking Dead."

“The Walking Dead” is the kind of show any network would kill for.

For anyone who has been living under a rock, “Dead” is a hit series that features zombies — the hottest ghouls in horror. The show follows the twisted adventures of a group of people who are attempting to survive the zombie apocalypse.

With an average of about 12 million viewers last season, the show has a growing audience — and is now among the most-watched dramas on television. Pretty neat for a story drawn entirely from a series of comic books.

What’s more, the series is on cable.

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That’s not lost on broadcast network executives. They once scoffed at cable channels, but have found themselves fighting an increasingly tough battle against high-quality programming on cable and the Internet. Kind of like how the humans on “Dead” are constantly fighting overwhelming hordes of flesh eaters.

For the networks, there’s no defense against these undead.

Usually when a really popular show comes along, other broadcasters simply try to copy the good idea and end up with a half-baked versions of their own.

However, since “Dead” is quite graphic — lots of blood, gore and rotting flesh — the big broadcast networks Fox, ABC, NBC and CBS, which are bound by federal decency laws, have had to pass on the zombies.

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Seriously, how could anyone ever watch a watered-down copy after consuming such a good original? Nobody can — and that’s what stings the big networks.

Last season “Dead” easily outrated network stalwarts like “American Idol” and “Law & Order: SVU,” overtaking and devouring them as easily as the undead can rip the flesh off their victims.

Thanks to all the buzz, the AMC show is poised to snare even more viewers when its fourth season debuts Sunday — in much the same way a corpse attracts flies.

So what’s the appeal?

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It’s simple. “Dead” offers some of the best storytelling on TV, performed by one of the most talented casts around. Also, it doesn’t hurt that zombies are pretty freaking cool.

“The thing with zombies,” filmmaker John Landis recently told the website Zap2it, “is that I really believe they’re so popular because they represent anarchy, the loss of control and the collapse of society.”

He added: “Look around the world. I think that’s what we’re scared of and that’s happening in a lot of places.”

In this case, such chaos has been a blessing for AMC, which, thanks to “Dead” and other hits like “Mad Men,” has gone from an afterthought of a cable channel to one of the most watched on television.

Chew on that.

dkaplan@nydailynews.com