10 Resurrected TV Shows That Should’ve Stayed Dead
3. The Killing
It's impossible to explain this one without some degree of spoilers, so if you haven't seen the series yet and you're planning on watching it, you may want to skip to the final entry. The Killing was, uh, born during the period where AMC's popularity was exploding thanks to Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and The Walking Dead. It was supposed to be their next prestige drama, a police procedural where the first season covered a single case (a la ABC's Murder One), the, well, killing of Rosie Larsen. All of the promotional material for season one was centered around one question: "WHO KILLED ROSIE LARSEN?" With too many red herrings, odd dialogue, and a terrible understanding of the Internet, it was an OK show with some potential carried by strong performances by the key actors. Which lost a gigantic percentage of its audience when season one ended without telling us who killed Rosie Larsen. The internet threw a collective fit and there was speculation about if it was a stunt to guarantee a second season. If it was, it worked, and thankfully, the show revealed the killer's identity before being mercifully cancelled at the end of season two. Until someone decided to renew it for no apparent reason. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoqjTS9hbB8 Season three was the best so far, even with more bad red herrings, and while they badly telegraphed the identity of the murderer, it ended in an interesting place emotionally for the main characters that served well as a series finale. Which was all well and good, because AMC cancelled it. For real this time. Then Netflix picked it up, with the idea that they were providing original content that increased the value of the previous seasons since it would now be a cohesive story. This meant that the emotionally interesting ending was no longer an ending, and the show did a terrible job trying to get the characters out of it, ending with a terrible deus ex machina. The mystery itself was the bleakest yet, especially without the restrictions of basic cable, though from a straight "Who did it?" standpoint, it made the most sense of the show's three cases by far, with the red herrings all making complete sense. So that was actually kind of OK. If there was any goodwill, though, the ending flushed it all down the drain. The show flashed forward five years to make the two leads a couple even though they had never shown any romantic chemistry whatsoever and the show was ending so there was no shipper fanbase to appeal to. Because...why? Nobody knows.
Formerly the site manager of Cageside Seats and the WWE Team Leader at Bleacher Report, David Bixenspan has been writing professionally about WWE, UFC, and other pop culture since 2009. He's currently WhatCulture's U.S. Editor and also serves as the lead writer of Figure Four Weekly and a monthly contributor to Fighting Spirit Magazine.
It's impossible to explain this one without some degree of spoilers, so if you haven't seen the series yet and you're planning on watching it, you may want to skip to the final entry. The Killing was, uh, born during the period where AMC's popularity was exploding thanks to Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and The Walking Dead. It was supposed to be their next prestige drama, a police procedural where the first season covered a single case (a la ABC's Murder One), the, well, killing of Rosie Larsen. All of the promotional material for season one was centered around one question: "WHO KILLED ROSIE LARSEN?" With too many red herrings, odd dialogue, and a terrible understanding of the Internet, it was an OK show with some potential carried by strong performances by the key actors. Which lost a gigantic percentage of its audience when season one ended without telling us who killed Rosie Larsen. The internet threw a collective fit and there was speculation about if it was a stunt to guarantee a second season. If it was, it worked, and thankfully, the show revealed the killer's identity before being mercifully cancelled at the end of season two. Until someone decided to renew it for no apparent reason. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoqjTS9hbB8 Season three was the best so far, even with more bad red herrings, and while they badly telegraphed the identity of the murderer, it ended in an interesting place emotionally for the main characters that served well as a series finale. Which was all well and good, because AMC cancelled it. For real this time. Then Netflix picked it up, with the idea that they were providing original content that increased the value of the previous seasons since it would now be a cohesive story. This meant that the emotionally interesting ending was no longer an ending, and the show did a terrible job trying to get the characters out of it, ending with a terrible deus ex machina. The mystery itself was the bleakest yet, especially without the restrictions of basic cable, though from a straight "Who did it?" standpoint, it made the most sense of the show's three cases by far, with the red herrings all making complete sense. So that was actually kind of OK. If there was any goodwill, though, the ending flushed it all down the drain. The show flashed forward five years to make the two leads a couple even though they had never shown any romantic chemistry whatsoever and the show was ending so there was no shipper fanbase to appeal to. Because...why? Nobody knows.