The Killing

[sophinisba]

Since The Good Wife and Community are over for the season I was looking to start in on something new, so I decided to check out the AMC crime drama The Killing, and I'm liking it a lot. So far I've watched the two-hour pilot and the episode after that. It's based on the Danish series Forbrydelsen and it's neat because it's spending the whole season (13 episodes) on one murder investigation. I mean, I like me some formulaic murder-of-the-week police procedural as much as the next girl, but this is really interesting as a change of pace and as a way of showing how much the death of one person means to their family and community. (It's also easier for me to follow than The Wire, sorry.) It's set in Seattle and I really like the way they make the city look. It reminds me a little bit of Prime Suspect, including the fact that it stars a tough female detective, though their personalities are really different.

I like all the actors a lot. The only ones that are familiar to me are Michelle Forbes, who was also in Homicide and Battlestar Galactica, as the victim's mother, and Callum Keith Rennie, also from BSG and a bunch of other things, as the lead's long-suffering fiance (he is not in every episode). It is filmed in Vancouver and sometimes I think a lot of the accents sound somewhat Canadian (especially on words like "got" and "body") but then I realized it could be a Pacific Northwest type accent - I don't actually know what a Seattle accent sounds like because none of my Seattle friends grew up there. Do you folks know?

One thing I don't like as much about the show is the way they depict the mayoral candidate and his staff. I know there are lots of corrupt politicians in the world but their coldness and cynicism seems a little overdone to me. I think, for instance, that even someone who is cynical about the possibilities of getting a large Somali immigrant population to vote for their candidate would...be a little more discreet about that in a staff meeting. But whatever, maybe that is realistic and the politicians I've been around are just unusually earnest ones, and anyway it's not a major thing.

ETA: Besides the murder there is some stuff to do with teenage girls and sexual assault, so maybe be careful if that's something that triggers or upsets you. So far for me it's been less scary/difficult to watch than, say, BSG or Nikita, and it's been maybe about as graphic Law & Order SVU, but I'm only a few episodes in./

Anyway, I recommend this show if you like some intense and gloomy crime drama with interesting characters, including ladies. Are any of you watching, or have you watched the Danish series?

Comments

[itachitachi]

I hail from (close to) Seattle, and I'm going to school in Vancouver. I've pretty much not noticed a lot of difference... there's a bit of Canadian raising going on in the back vowels of a Vancouver accent, but I really don't notice a lot, certainly not in comparison to someone from Toronto. Um, then again I've also not really been able to pinpoint much distinction between my accent and Generic Western American accent... I don't have much of an ear for accents similar to my own. /o\

[sophinisba]

That makes sense, that the accent would be close since it's so close geographically. Also when I listened to your podfic I thought you did not sound all that different from me, with my Midwestern accent, but I'm not good at identifying that kind of thing at all. There's also class variation within the show, some of the characters have a stronger accent than others and I'm never sure how much is intentional. A show that's much stranger in that way: Treme.

[fanofall]

I am! We love it. It's so intriguing. Although the only thin I've learned about Seattle is that it apparently rains NONSTOP 24/7/365. I'm not sure how they haven't floated away.

[sophinisba]

Ha ha ha! It's been raining in my part of the country as well and my urge has been to stay inside and do nothing but marathon this show, but un/fortunately I can't acquire the episodes quite that fast.

The first time I visited Seattle as an adult I was surprised by the way the grass went right to the street, without the cement curbs we have where I live, and that the shade of green of the grass was different. It's a little thing but it's neat to see it show up on TV.

[netgirl_y2k]

I fell madly in love with the Danish series when the BBC was airing it. I actually really liked that it was subtitled because it meant I had to pay attention, usually with heavily plotted things I get distracted at some vital moment, miss some essential plot point and am confused ever more. I haven't seen any of the US version, but that was mostly because I didn't know Michelle Forbes was in it, I have loved her for years.

[sophinisba]

When I watch Law & Order the plot tends to sort of wash over me, but it's been slow enough on this one that I've been able to follow it so far. I do want to watch the Danish series eventually though I feel lazy about subtitles at the moment.

Michelle Forbes is really, really good in this.

[winterfish]

I watched the Danish version and really loved it. Sophie Grabol as Sarah Lund was amazing. I'll eventually watch the AMC version because of Michelle Forbes, but want to take a bit of break so I'm not tempted to just make comparisons between the two versions.

[sophinisba]

That's right, your the person whose episode reactions I've been seeing. I'm thinking I might do the same, watch this and then go back to the Danish series at some point, but with a break in between.