The
Killing Adds to the Quality Reputation of AMC
In
recent years, AMC has become the home of solid, character-driven dramas
that develop at a slower pace than the fare found on network television.
AMC has likewise been justly rewarded for such original content with
Emmy recognition of shows like Breaking Bad and Mad Men,
while the cable channel itself has been elevated from its early inception
as a rerun movie channel to a destination for quality programming. The
Killing, which premiered on AMC in April 2011, not only follows
the blueprint of the dramas that came before it but adds to the channel’s
reputation as well.
Based on
the Danish television series Forbrydelsen, The Killing
follows two Seattle police detectives as they investigate the murder
of teenage girl Rosie Larsen. Each of the thirteen episodes takes place
over the course of approximately one day in the investigation and slowly
build to some sort of significant revelation or event at the end. This
is no CSI or Hawaii Five-0, with the case quickly
wrapped up within an hour, and many of the twists along the way turn
out to be red herrings or false leads. This only adds to a realistic
atmosphere for the series, however, and enables the action to advance
at its own tempo.
And The
Killing is indeed filled with atmosphere. The locale of the northern
Washington city is portrayed with gray skies, steady rain and a sense
of foreboding that gives the series a classic film noir quality. Metropolitan
Seattle, meanwhile—with its Space Needle and skyscraper landscape—takes
a backseat to the working-class neighborhoods that serve as the primary
setting for The Killing. With mountains, lakes, darkened forests
and gravel roads added to the mix, the AMC drama has quite a different
aura from the big-city crime dramas found on other channels.
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The
Killing and the Scandinavian Crime Fiction Genre
The
Scandinavian crime novel has experienced phenomenal success in the early
part of the Twenty First Century. Although the main catalyst has been
Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy—especially the first
book in the series, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo—in
reality the region has produced a large number of intelligently-written
entries into the mystery genre, including 1992’s Smilla’s
Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg. In addition to Larsson, the list of
authors who have seen translations of their works make various English-language
best seller lists in recent years include Henning Mankell, Jo Nesbo
and Hakan Nesser.
Denmark
took the popularity of this successful export to the next logical level
in 2007 with the television series Forbrydelsen. The twenty-episode
first season followed the murder of teenage girl Nanna Birk Larsen,
with each installment making up twenty-four hours in the investigation.
In 2011, AMC launched an American adaptation of Forbrydelsen,
shortening its first season to thirteen episodes but sticking with the
timeline format as well as placing equal focus on the family of the
victim and a mayoral election campaign caught in the aftermath. While
The Killing takes place in Seattle, Washington, and is produced
by American television scribe Veena Sud, the series likewise has characteristics
similar to those found within the pages of a Scandinavian mystery novel.
So what
is it about Scandinavian crime fiction that makes it both unique and
appealing to English-speaking audiences? A quick Google search reveals
numerous competing viewpoints, ranging from characters to setting to
psyche. “Maybe their relentlessly bleak view of the world makes
us feel that out lives are better than we imagined, allowing us the
pleasure of wallowing in pessimism at a safe distance,” offers
Joan Smith in a May 2009 article for the London Times. She
even entices Swedish author Hakan Nesser to agree with the assessment.
“Nordic people are supposed to be depressed,” he is quoted
as saying. “We’re not supposed to talk at all. We’re
supposed to keep everything inside.”
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The
Killing and Twin Peaks
On
April 8, 1990, ABC premiered a new drama entitled Twin Peaks.
The series, created by film director David Lynch, centered on the murder
of high school student Laura Palmer and the subsequent investigation
into her death, but in reality it was a philosophical dissertation on
good and evil, as well as a study into the darker sides of what initially
appears as a small, Washington community with a scenic landscape, freshly
baked pies and tranquil aura.
On April
3, 2011, AMC premiered a new drama entitled The Killing. It
also follows the death of a high school student in Washington and the
subsequent investigation, but instead of small town America, The
Killing takes place in Seattle. Although the series was based upon
a Danish television show called Forbrydelsen, its initial tagline
of “Who Killed Rosie Larsen?” quickly brings to mind the
tagline of Twin Peaks from twenty-one years earlier, “Who
Killed Laura Palmer?” The Killing likewise delves into
the secret closets of its characters, and shines light on what lies
beneath ordinary people struggling to survive in a world filled with
ambiguity.
That is
not to suggest that The Killing is a Twin Peaks clone.
Twin Peaks, after all, was more fantasy than reality, a television
show filled with quirky characters, dancing midgets, cryptic giants
and a supernatural personification of evil simply known as “Bob.”
The Killing, on the other hand, has no such fantastical elements
and is populated with the type of people one meets on a daily basis.
The investigative styles of Sarah Linden is also grounded in the every
day grunt work of regular police departments and not the Sherlock Holmes-like
stylings of FBI Agent Dale Cooper. Still, small strands of Twin
Peaks DNA run through The Killing nonetheless.
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