Dear AMC: Re: The Killing...

[That Guy]

Thank you SO MUCH for wasting 13 hours of my time, and then playing the super-lame-o cliffhanger card, WITHOUT resolving the story.

Nice Job!

Here's your report card so far: (of the shows that I've watched)

Mad Men: B Pretty good show, although most characters are difficult to like\believe

The Walking Dead: C (and I'm being generous) Overwrought, just plain dumb soap opera disguised as quasi-horror.

The Killing: F Here's a clue, if you're calling it a mystery, the rules say that you must eventually SOLVE THE CRIME in a timely manner. The ONLY reason I allowed myself to get sucked into this slow-paced, depressing sad sack of a show was the mystery angle. I hung in despite numerous red herrings, scowling, depressing detectives, and overall malaise. And for zip. Won't be watching next season.

[nophex]

At least she stopped chewing gum all the time. I could barely watch the first few episodes as she went to town on her nicorette.

[JazGalaxy]

Thank you SO MUCH for wasting 13 hours of my time, and then playing the super-lame-o cliffhanger card, WITHOUT resolving the story.

Nice Job!

Here's your report card so far: (of the shows that I've watched)

Mad Men: B Pretty good show, although most characters are difficult to like\believe

The Walking Dead: C (and I'm being generous) Overwrought, just plain dumb soap opera disguised as quasi-horror.

The Killing: F Here's a clue, if you're calling it a mystery, the rules say that you must eventually SOLVE THE CRIME in a timely manner. The ONLY reason I allowed myself to get sucked into this slow-paced, depressing sad sack of a show was the mystery angle. I hung in despite numerous red herrings, scowling, depressing detectives, and overall malaise. And for zip. Won't be watching next season.

O_o

I think these shows just aren't for you.

Twin Peaks wrote the book on season long mysteries and the one universal lesson writers took away from it is that when your show is about a murder, don't SOLVE the murder. No matter how much fans think thats what they want.

That being said, I don't watch The Killing

[That Guy]

O_o

I think these shows just aren't for you.

You're probably right about that. I'm still trying with Mad Men though. All my friends continuously tell me how great it is. I keep watching, thinking\hoping I'll eventually get it.

Twin Peaks wrote the book on season long mysteries and the one universal lesson writers took away from it is that when your show is about a murder, don't SOLVE the murder. No matter how much fans think thats what they want.

I watched Twin Peaks the first time around and was just as frustrated and angry as every other TP fan when it turned into a joke. Oddly enough, I'd been hearing\reading some comments from fans of "The Killing" saying something like "please don't let it turn into another Twin Peaks". Sadly, it has.

[Johan]

It's amazing to me how tempting it is for creatives on television/cable to avoid providing decent 'completion' to their work, instead dragging it on and out and all around, to viewers' immense frustration. It's as if a painter was working on a painting that people were raving about, and as a result decided NEVER TO FINISH THE PAINTING because it was so popular! What the hell? Storylines need closure and expiration dates!

As for The Walking Dead, I have high hopes for the new crew of scriptwriters that it will be less melodramatic and more interesting in its character development. They may lose me if it becomes increasingly As the World Turns of the evenings, however.

[rein]

I have no problem with the finale. I have a problem with the shit marketing that marketed this as a crime mystery to begin with.

The characters were great and I've seen it referred to as a "character study" about what happens after a crime. Well, that is all fine and good but as a crime mystery (what it was advertised to be) the writing sucked. It was by-the-seat and let's-be-different-to-be-edgy. News flash Veena Sud. being edgy just to be edgy sometimes doesn't work out. I doubt I will pay attention to the series return next season. At this point, I don't care who killed Rosie. Again, not because of the finale but because as a mystery the show just wasn't that engaging.

[Syl]

How have you ignored Breaking Bad?

It is fantastic.

[Anenome]

It should be like Lost where they go 12 seasons and never solve the crime ^_^

[Verruckt]

You should watch Breaking Bad. Best show on TV.

The Killing was awful. It's not that they didn't solve the crime, it's that they didnt solve it after I had started to find out the show had TERRIBLE writing halfway through, and the ONLY reason I continued watching was to find out who did it.

[Anenome]

I've seen, I think, two seasons of Breaking Bad. Good show :)

[That Guy]

How have you ignored Breaking Bad?

It is fantastic.

I've seen a couple of episodes and it is very good. But it's just so hard to watch. I empathize with White a little too much, and every time I see him about to do something INCREDIBLY wrong (and that happens quite a bit) my guts cinch up and I just start shaking my head, saying "no, no, no, no..."... but he never listens.

I will commit to it sooner or later... probably sooner as there's nothing else on I really want to watch.

[Anenome]

But have you seen Dexter? >_>

[That Guy]

But have you seen Dexter? >_>

I LOVED Dexter.. mostly.

LOVED season 1
Mostly loved season 2
Liked season 3
... and then I just got burned out. I've heard season 4 is amazing, and I will watch it eventually.

[Anenome]

Season 4 was pretty sweet, John Lithgow plays a bad-guy, and an ending that will knock your socks off ;)

Season 5... dude, you HAVE to see Season 5, he gets an accomplice--I will say no more >_>

[TeeCakes]

How have you ignored Breaking Bad?

It is fantastic.

This.

And as to the OP, you should probably stick to buying boxed sets of TV shows on DVD/Blu-ray if you are constantly annoyed at this. Because literally EVERY show is supposed to hook fans and get them watching with every new season, The Killing isn't the first to tantalize viewers with non-answers and it certainly won't be the last.

Hell, we've gone through like 6 seasons of How I Met Your Mother and THERE IS NO TRACE OF THE DAMN MOTHER YETTTTT so if answers is what you seek just wait till the series is complete to avoid disappointment.

As for the actual show itself, I think The Killing has gotten a bad rep for being a Twin Peaks clone. It's certainly true that there are blatant allusions to David Lynch's masterpiece (the dead girl going into an Indian casino incognito from her parents, much like Audrey Horne going to One-Eyed Jack's) this is ultimately a character piece with a hyper-realistic hook to it. TP's universe was delightfully zany, surreal and otherworldly. TK's universe is raw, gritty, and real (aside from the ridiculous plot twists, I mean).

I like the sidekick character, Holder, and his involvement in the coverup of the crime/framing of the politician will probably be enough to get me to watch S2. I want MUCH less of the Midge character (and since she moved out in the season finale, hopefully she won't be back for S2), and dammit they need to stop with the red herrings and stupid coincidences to avoid being a total joke. But overall 3 stars out of 5 for the first season, even crappy AMC shows are a cut above the rest of the trash on TV.

[Anenome]

It's just a shame when a show has no actual resolution in mind.

For instance, Lost. Basically trolled its audience for six seasons was it? >_>

The writers had no clue where the story was supposed to go. It was nothing but drama and conflict with no overarching story to resolve.

I keep telling you guys that Half Life was written the exact same way. You'll never know the truth behind the G-man because even the writers don't know. To wrap up that story you'd have to pay an actual writer to come in, retcon a few things, and provide an ending, and Valve simply isn't interested in ending it or making another one.

Because Gabe doesn't force his devs to make games they aren't excited about--and frankly I think that's awesome.

Just look at Metal Gear or Halo--two series so successful that they captured their creators to where they were literally doomed to spend the next decade making and remaking that same game time and time again.

Creators like to move on, try new ideas they're excited about--push the cutting-edge rather than ride their successes until the market vomits them out from overexposure.

The right way to do it is the way some more recent shows HAVE been doing it, which is you wrap up individual storylines over the course of one season. This is how Curb Your Enthusiasm does it, Dexter, etc.

Disclosure: I never watched much Lost, but my friends swear it's awesome. So, I take it the storylines were all about interpersonal conflict in a survival situation. It still bugs me that there's no explanation for the black fog and the nuke bunker or w/e that was. Stuff pisses me off -_-

[TeeCakes]

Black Fog = the second born of a set of twins from an unnamed woman who crashed on The Island during the Roman Centurian era. He becomes the Black Fog after he turns to the dark side when his psycho foster mother ruins his plan to finally escape the Island. The 'black' twin kills the foster mother, and the 'good' twin retaliates by tossing him directly into highly-charged exotic matter located in the Heart of the Island which turns him into Smokey, speaking of which...

Nuke Bunker = ...this is created to contain the aforementioned exotic matter, preventing the entire world from being destroyed (according to the hippies and 60's era scientists who built the nuke bunker and studied the unique energy of the Island). The bunker was built right ontop of a pocket of energy that ultimately leads back to the source of the matter (where the 'good' twin threw the 'black' twin into the Heart of the Island).

Operators of the bunker (aka the Swan Station) would push a button every 108 minutes to prevent the exotic matter from building up to dangerous levels and potentially ending the world. The bunker was set up when the main characters of LOST time traveled back to the 60's and detonated a hydrogen bomb right where the pocket of energy was located in the hopes of sending them back to the future-- they got sent back but ultimately they ended up causing a lot of the problems encountered in the series themselves (the detonation led to their plane crashing in the pilot episode, for example, since the plane crashed because the 108-minute button didn't get pressed on time for that one day exactly when their flight was in proximity to the Island).

You need anything else explained from LOST? Cause they literally answered every important question raised throughout the series. Just FYI, I think the first season was the best writing and acting accomplished in any tv series in the past 20 years, but after that first season the quality took a major nosedive. The ratings seem to agree with that assessment, but there's no denying that first season is nothing short of magic-- you should check it out sometime (I think they still show it for free on ABC.com or Hulu).