Q: What's the difference between "The Walking Dead" and a mixed-martial-arts bout?
A: MMA losers get to live.
Cable's most-watched drama, which returns for Season 6 on Sunday, may occasionally pass itself off as high art, but fans need to climb down off Mount Pretentious and admit that they're addicted to little more than a sadomasochistic version of "Survivor."
Nothing wrong with that, just as there's nothing wrong with spending an entire afternoon playing "Minecraft" — as long as you don't find yourself lying awake at night, imagining zombies lurking in your closet. When that happens, take two aspirin and binge-watch a season of "Touched by an Angel," stat!
If you forget "Dead" is at its best embracing its mindless core, you're not alone. In the season premiere, producers track the slo-mo approach of zombies on the once-peaceful town of Alexandria by applying a black-and-white flashback sequence that wants you to believe Francois Truffaut has taken over the helm. Watching Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln, an actor badly in need of a rom-com) come to grips with his dark side may have been a compelling journey, if it hadn't already been done so recently on just about every other great cable series, most notably "Breaking Bad."
Mute the psychobabble, shriek at the stupid horror — and pass the popcorn.
