Small-Screen Gems

Tonight will bring the debut of The Killing, an AMC-TV miniseries. It’s based on a Danish program, Forbrydelsen, which--with English subtitles--ran over several months on Britain’s BBC 4, to high acclaim.

As Omnimystery News explains, the story “revolves around the Seattle murder of teenager Rosie Larsen, and the gripping police investigation it sparks. The facts of the case unfold against a backdrop of local politics, high-school scandal, and a grieving family flattened by tragedy. As leads turn cold and suspects multiply, the detectives race against time to find the killer. They soon discover that everyone is a suspect, every suspect has a secret, and every hour counts.” Meanwhile, TV Squad critic Maureen Ryan calls The Killing an “enthralling murder mystery” that “trusts its audience to follow along. It trusts that it doesn’t need fake melodrama or overheated intrigue to keep its audience’s interest.” The Killing kicks off at 9 p.m. ET/PT with a two-hour episode, and will continue with 12 one-hour episodes after that. You can learn more about this show here and here.

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Also being broadcast on the boob tube this evening, but only in the UK--beginning at 8 p.m.--is the fifth series premiere of Lewis (or Inspector Lewis, as it’s known here in the States), the outstanding, often moving detective series starring Kevin Whately and Laurence Fox.“This spin-off from the fondly remembered Inspector Morse is as comfy as an old glove, and the Oxford setting [is] as distantly aspirational as an idealised university town can be,” Robin Jarossi remarks on the program in his blog, Crime Time Preview.

Series five of Lewis comprises four episodes, none of which yet appear on the schedule for PBS-TV’s Masterpiece Mystery!, their usual venue on this side of the Atlantic. However, given the show’s popularity, I expect Americans won’t have to wait too long to see series five for themselves.