The Killing

[Internet Apex]

Everyone here should watch it.  It's fantastic.

Episodes are also available on amc.com.

DirecTV not having amc in HD sucks.  I do like this show, however, even though the main actress is a turd.

I just got DirecTV and I had no idea AMC wasn't in HD. This is a problem for the return of Walking Dead.

I just got Dish Network with AMC in HD along with the ability to watch my TV programming on my notcurrentlybrokemsmartphone. Suck it, inferior satellite tv watchers

Does Dish Network have NFL Sunday Ticket?

It has the Bears games

That means it's superior only to Dish Network systems in markets other than Chicago's, which you are lucky to be in.

At least he's got MLB Network....wait. Or the ability to record more than one show on the same tv at a time..nevermind. I've had both. DirectTV is much better. Yeti lies.

But, yeah. AMC in HD!

[J. Walter Weatherman]

Renewed.

Gil wins again.

[Gilgamesh]

Renewed.

Gil wins again.

Now it is time to begin my work on getting Arrested Development back on the air!!

[Bort]

Renewed.

Gil wins again.

Now it is time to begin my work on getting Arrested Development back on the air!!

Intrepid Reader Chuck: Awful, Awful. Now where are my Happy Days DVDs?

[Quality Start Machine]

Renewed.

Gil wins again.

Now it is time to begin my work on getting Arrested Development back on the air!!

Intrepid Reader Chuck: Awful, Awful. Now where are my Happy Days M*A*S*H DVDs?

Missed it by that muched.

[Bort]

Renewed.

Gil wins again.

Now it is time to begin my work on getting Arrested Development back on the air!!

Intrepid Reader Chuck: Awful, Awful. Now where are my Happy Days M*A*S*H DVDs?

Missed it by that muched.

I was going for a 70s show that Chuck has mentioned in the past that was popular but never good to create a countepoint. M*A*S*H had too much quality. But thank you for the humor advice, Dad.

[Quality Start Machine]

Renewed.

Gil wins again.

Now it is time to begin my work on getting Arrested Development back on the air!!

Intrepid Reader Chuck: Awful, Awful. Now where are my Happy Days M*A*S*H DVDs?

Missed it by that muched.

I was going for a 70s show that Chuck has mentioned in the past that was popular but never good to create a countepoint. M*A*S*H had too much quality. But thank you for the humor advice, Dad.

HD's first couple seasons actually had pretty damn good acting & writing. Pretty much once they strayed away from copying "American Graffiti", it went into the shitter, Son.

*lights pipe*

[Bort]

Renewed.

Gil wins again.

Now it is time to begin my work on getting Arrested Development back on the air!!

Intrepid Reader Chuck: Awful, Awful. Now where are my Happy Days M*A*S*H DVDs?

Missed it by that muched.

I was going for a 70s show that Chuck has mentioned in the past that was popular but never good to create a countepoint. M*A*S*H had too much quality. But thank you for the humor advice, Dad.

HD's first couple seasons actually had pretty damn good acting & writing. Pretty much once they strayed away from copying "American Graffiti", it went into the shitter, Son.

*lights pipe*

I've seen those seasons, and maybe it's pretty good if you grade on a serious curve, Uncle Touchy.

[Quality Start Machine]

Renewed.

Gil wins again.

Now it is time to begin my work on getting Arrested Development back on the air!!

Intrepid Reader Chuck: Awful, Awful. Now where are my Happy Days M*A*S*H DVDs?

Missed it by that muched.

I was going for a 70s show that Chuck has mentioned in the past that was popular but never good to create a countepoint. M*A*S*H had too much quality. But thank you for the humor advice, Dad.

HD's first couple seasons actually had pretty damn good acting & writing. Pretty much once they strayed away from copying "American Graffiti", it went into the shitter, Son.

*lights pipe*

I've seen those seasons, and maybe it's pretty good if you grade on a serious curve, Uncle Touchy.

Yeti's Uncle Touchy. I just like to watch.

[Richard Chuggar]

Interesting

[Gilgamesh]

Fuck this show.

[R-V]

Fuck this show.

Nice choice, Gil.

It utterly failed to make Rosie herself matter. It failed at making Stan and Mitch into anything but monotonous engines of grief. It failed to make the political campaign the least bit interesting at any point. And while it briefly turned Linden and Holder into three-dimensional humans with the episode a few weeks ago that put the investigation on hold, a lot of that was undercut by the Holder reveal here at the end. Obviously, the stuff about his addiction, his sister and his nephew was true, but the building of the relationship and trust with Linden wasn't.

Sud also said that part of the point of ending the season this way was to remind the audience that this isn't a formula cop show, and they can throw out their expectations. But she's wrong. This show DOES have a formula, one that's very easy to anticipate now. Because all you really have to understand about "The Killing" - and what should have made me anticipate where the finale was going, only even I couldn't fathom that the creative team would so fundamentally misread their audience in that way -  is this:

Every single thing this show tells you is a lie.

Forget about them not revealing the killer in the finale. That's a spirit of the law vs. the letter of the law question. This is about everything else.

We were told that Sud and company would use the extended time to really get to know the characters in a way that a traditional police procedural can't. We haven't. Most of the characters have turned out to be ciphers (the Larsens), not who we were told they were (Holder) or both (Richmond).

Nearly every episode of the series ended with a scene flashing a neon "Guilty!" sign at a new character, the better to lure us into watching the next episode, only for that episode to almost immediately clear that character. Sud tells me most of their early red herrings came from the Danish show. I haven't seen "Forbrydelsen," but based on the acclaim it received and the continued support it gets from people here who have watched both shows, even if the broad points were the same, I have to assume that the American creative team lost something major in the translation.

The Killing began with atmospheric promise then frittered that promise away like so many tendrils of (fake) weed smoke out of Holder's betraying mouth. The murder victim was an empty cipher. Every suspect was a red herring. The characters were obnoxious, shrill, hammy, and — this is key — terrible at their jobs. (The only protagonist who experienced any sort of growth — and thus the only one to develop any sort of rapport with viewers — was Holder. And for the sake of a cheap twist, all that development was squandered last night. It was, as the man himself would put it, wiggedy wack.) And all of this led to a finale that spat in the face of convention, logic, and the audience. There was tone of condescension about this entire project from the start — all the talk of defying audience expectations, of how the writers would sort of "figure out" the killer's identity as they went along. All of this reeked of poorly thought out elitism, like a college freshman clutching a half-read copy of Siddartha and explaining to everyone how they just "don't get it, man."

What Veena Sud — and, by extension, her corporate enablers at AMC — doesn't seem to get is that you don't make good TV by reinventing the wheel. You make good TV by making good TV: you know, old saws like character development, plot consideration, compelling story. The Killing tried to skate by on atmospherics (read: rain), histrionics (see: the Larsens), and a high-class game of gotcha (it was Jasper! Wait, no, it was Bennet! No, there are terrorists! Not really but there are high-class hookers! Except not!). You can fool some of the people some of the time but not for thirteen hours.

[Gilgamesh]

This show is unfortunately back on this Sunday.

Guh.

[CT III]

This show is unfortunately back on this Sunday.

Guh.

From now on it will be know as "The Gilling".

[Gilgamesh]

Three episodes in and all we have learned is that Richmond is paralyzed (or not), Holder is shaken by his actions (or not), Linden is homeless and a terrible mother, Mr. Larsen is boinking his sister-in-law (or not), Mrs. Larsen is bumping uglies with random men (or not), and we're going through the sixth possible suspect in the Larsen killing.  And it's damp outside.  Really damp.

Fuck, at least Twin Peaks had a fucking dancing dwarf midget by this point.