The Unlikely Rescue of AMC's The Killing

If you’ve never seen The Killing, you wouldn’t be the only one. The AMC drama has had its spotlight stolen in previous years by bigger projects. The project had potential, but was dumped for bigger fish (Breaking Bad, Mad Men and The Walking Dead are all crowd-pleasers.) As if by miracle (or with the help of the network gods) The Killing has gotten a renewal for this season and, under new management, the show has a good chance killing it, pun intended.

Sarah Linden (Mireille Enos) and Stephen Holder (Joel Kinnaman) are back, but it's 15 months after the Rosie Larsen murder case was resolved, but they have brand new cases on their capable hands – starting with a Seattle-based serial killer with a penchant for homeless teenagers. It sounds like dark stuff, but that’s usually AMC’s domain. The Killing has definitely gotten a mixed bag over its brief lifespan.

After falling ratings during its second season (a 27% drop is usually something that gets the networks nervous. It was fairly certain that AMC would drop the series, according to USA Today, but the show's producer, Fox Television Studios, immediately said it would look into ways to continue the The Killing, perhaps on a different network. But then Netflix rode in on a white horse, as it has often done of late, and saved the production – in exchange for a lot of benefits, including exclusivity in some foreign markets. And that is how a cult show gets pulled out of the drain in the last second. The Killing's third season premieres this Sunday on AMC.

Plot twist: Sarah Linden and Stephen Holder are back this Sunday.