Preternatural shows have highest body count on TV
Originally published at The Preternatural Post. Please leave any comments there.
When it comes to putting bodies on, or in, the ground, a new study from Funeralwise.com reveals that television series with preternatural twists are among the best in show business. They aren’t however, the best, or rather bloodiest, shows on TV. That honor goes to the historical action adventure series Spartacus: Vengeance. The STARZ hit averaged 25 dead bodies per episode.
Who’s next when it comes to delivering body counts depends on whether the bodies you’re counting are human or not. If they are, the honor goes to the Game of Thrones in which an average of 13 human lives come to an end every episode,. On the other hand, if you aren’t a speciesist. the Game of Thrones gets beat out by both The Vampire Diaries and The Walking Dead.
Although only a single human dies, on average, each episode, The Vampire Diaries and The Walking Dead kill off more non-human characters than any other series on television. An average of 18 non-humans meet their final death each week on the CW’s The Vampire Diaries while an average of 16 non-humans fall during each episode of AMC’s The Walking Dead.
In contrast, HBO’s original series True Blood and the CW’s Supernatural only account for four bodies per episode, three human and 1 non-human. And NBC’s dark fairy tale series Grimm only accounts for an average of three bodies per episode, two humans and a non-human. The 40 television series analyzed for the Funeralwise.com study averaged more than 3 bodies per episode and piled up an impressive, or depressing 132 bodies total in an average week.
The body count study was conceived by Rick Paskin, managing partner at Funeralwise.com when he nticed the large number of killings occurring each week on a popular television crime show. Seeking to better understand the public’s acceptance of death as entertainment, he decided to commission the study. A network of “watchers” (anybody else thinking Highlander?) was assigned to count the number of dead bodies in 40 separate prime time programs on both broadcast and cable networks.The study was not statistically based and the shows selected were judged to have content that regularly included dead bodies. The body count study was conducted during the first four months of 2012.
“We did not find a direct correlation between the body count and viewership, but these programs are definitely popular with the viewing audience,” Paskin said. “As a funeral resource, the role of death in modern society is an interesting subject for Funeralwise. We know how difficult it is to get people to proactively plan for their funeral. There is a clear disconnection between the acceptance of death in popular culture and the acceptance of it in reality.”
Oh and by the way, if you’re a fictional character stay away from CBS, it’s the deadliest network of all. Not only were 11 CBS series selected for the study, five were among the top ten deadliest.
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