‘This was just a melodramatic crapfest’: American TV Critics’ reception of The Killing

In this brief overview of The Killing’s American reception, I consider the series’ rise and fall in critics’ eyes and relate these changing perceptions to expectations rooted in AMC’s brand, AMC’s promotional campaign, and the discourse of basic cable drama. I argue that rather than searching for an explanation of The Killing’s ‘failure’, it is more productive to consider this perceived failure as indication of a gap between critics’ expectations and The Killing’s challenge to the narrative structure of the masculinized prime time drama.