AMC kills with 'The Killing'

Finally caught up last night to this week’s debut of AMC’s new 13-part whodunit The Killing and what a debut it is. It struck me as a beautifully constructed model for a series opener, or, for that matter, the opening of a suspense novel.

The new Sunday-night show, AMC tells us, is based on a wildly successful Danish television series, Forbrydelsen. AMC’s version tells the story of the murder of a young girl in Seattle and the subsequent police investigation.

This week’s installment is a two-hour opener, but scratch all the commercials and credits and really there’s probably 90 minutes for set-up and storytelling. What director Patty Jenkins and writer-producer Veena Sud accomplish in that 90 minutes is impressive. They create layer upon layer of intrigue, suspicion, potential conflict and varying personal agendas. Most of the leading characters get some personal backstory sketched in, which is to say that we quickly come to see them as multi-dimensional rather than mere cogs in a plot machine. And what a credit to the creators of this show that they’re intelligent enough to choose actors who look and dress like real people, not models.

The perpetually overcast, rain-filled Seattle sky becomes a brooding, ominous presence. (Not exactly a great advertisement for Seattle tourism, though the show was actually filmed in Vancouver.) Somewhere there may be a mole loose in the office. (I love moles.) So far the show is not overly gory or explicitly violent, which would have probably been the case on HBO. That fact lets you concentrate on the intrigue and emotion.

I hope the rest of the series can live up to its debut. If you’re a fan of crime fiction, I’d recommend you give it a try. The opener gets four more showings, beginning tomorrow evening. Find the schedule here.

-- Ron Kovach, senior editor, The Writer

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