This is a tv show developed for Danish television, and it is as good as any crime show that you can find in international tv. It has a clear and terrific structure, very similar to “24”, actually, only that an episode covers a day of the investigation of a murder. Each of these days brings about more twists and turns, and what started out as a regular nasty bit of killing, develops into a political and human drama. At the heart of it is the police investigator, an intelligent, but socially mostly incompetent, almost autistic woman on her way out. The “last job” she is confronted with grabs her, and it seems she is not the type to let go before she found what she was looking for. With the slightly dark, slightly depressing, slightly muted Northern European setting, “The Killing” (or “The Crime” I think would be the more accurate translation) brings together all the best of recent popular Scandinavian literature (the Wallander crime stories, the Millenium trilogy) and films (Let The Right One In). the first season suffers from too many episodes (I call that the 24 phenomenon), so that there are moments when you know exactly that nothing you learn in episode 1 – 17 will have anything to do with what really happened. But at the end of the day, there is a very satisfying, thrilling, human, dark, twisted crime story with great characters in its center. Season 2 is actually even better timed, with half the episodes, and benefits from the time season 1 took to introduce these characters, especially the queer main police investigator Ms Lund.
Will there be more seasons? Yes, one more, I just read, and a good thing that is, because after watching just one episode of the US tv remake made it clear that this is not a good substitute…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killing_%28Danish_TV_series%29
thomas4cinema 