[SPOILER ALERT! -- Photo at bottom of this post is from AMC's Oct. 23 episode, second of the new season. If you don't want to know, don't scroll!]

Whoa, and boy howdy -- these are some impressive ratings numbers!

Sunday's second-season premiere of The Walking Dead was one live wire for AMC, smashing cable viewership records in key demos.

"The [age] 18-49 and 25-54 tallies broke basic cable's previous records posted by the premiere of USA Network's The Dead Zone in June 2002," reported our friends at Deadline Hollywood.

The Walking Dead racked up 4.8 million viewers in adults 18-49 and 4.2 million viewers in adults 25-54 (vs. Dead Zone numbers of 4.0 million in 18-49, 4.1 million in 25-54).

Clearly, Bianculli's rave had sway!

Even AMC's new post-preem Talking Dead chatfest did OK.