AMC Takes Us To Seattle For The Killing - Are You Watching?

Anyone out there in LamoLand watching AMC's The Killing?

An attention-getting two hour intro to the American rejiggering of the Danish television show Forbrydelsen (Crime), The Killing is the latest entrant in AMC's impressive lineup of television shows for people who like to think. The channel that brought us Mad Men and Breaking Bad have transported us from Madison Avenue and the meth-addled desert Southwest to soggy Seattle and lingering shots of pensive homicide cops staring into gloomy, fog-shrouded treelines.

Most folks know that The Killing was taken from Forbrydelsen, a plot-driven chiller that captured European audiences only too happy to exchange car chases and explosions for plot lines and character development. So now the female lead detective is Linden instead of Lund and we're after whomever killed a local schoolgirl named Rosie Larsen and stuffed her into the trunk of a car linked to a local politician.

The landscape, so wet at times you feel you have watercress growing in your pockets, is littered with twisted and shattered characters, bent cops and a particularly intuitive one trying to leave Seattle behind for a new life with a new family in Sonoma. As "good" as she appears to be the jaded among us may be led to believe that Det. Sarah Linden has secrets of her own.

AMC's attempt to hook viewers with a two-hour preview appears to have worked, and their plans to air the rest of the 13-part series has critics abuzz and fans excited about scheduling their nights around something other than American Idol. We watched as Rosie Larsen's last hours were peeled away to reveal an array of potential suspects and the kind-hearted but hard-bitten Det. Linden slowly became ensnared by her last case, her hope of leaving Seattle pulled away from her with every new clue.

All in all it was pretty good viewing, with one on-screen faux pax (bonus points for any Patch viewer who spotted it) and a churning plot line you could sink your teeth into.

That's what we thought, anway, but we're not reviewers here - what did you guys think about this latest AMC entry, and are Americans ready for yet another not-for-prime-time police procedural?