Is AMC's 'The Killing' in danger of cancellation?

Is AMC’s ‘The Killing’ in danger of cancellation?

That certainly seems to be the buzz anyway.

The show, which saw a substantial 19 percent drop in viewership with the season premiere earlier this month is continuing to struggle – despite the fact that the program still manages to chug along creatively.

The season premiere brought in a 1.8 million viewers and a 1.4 rating among households. With subsequent viewings, ‘The Killing’ only reached 2.5 million total viewers. In comparison, last year the show’s freshman season opened up with 4.7 million total viewers – including encores.

What’s at the heart of the drop?

While ‘The Killing’ executives may not want to admit it – and as of now they haven’t – viewers are still ticked about last season.

The writers never promised that Rosie Larsen’s killer would be revealed in the first season finale – but AMC’s advertising campaign certainly pointed to that very fact. When it didn’t happen, and the show instead ended on a cliffhanger, viewers were angry – to say the least.

Then the show runners and show star Mireille Enos essentially told fans to “get over it.”

That’s not necessarily how you engender fans to your side kids.

I think that show producers and writers thought that fans would just suck it up and return to the show because it was well written and well acted.

 

If that were the general rule, we were never have been subjected to the Kardashians.

In fact, fans have obstinately refused to return to the show – something I didn’t think would happen.

I expected the show to drop in viewers, don’t get me wrong, but not like this.

I’ve stuck with the show, even though my interest is starting to wane. I still like the actors associated with the program (Enos especially), but I’m kind of over the whole central murder mystery.

Not only am I losing interest in who killed Rosie, I’m definitely annoyed with the storylines surrounding her parents. The weird sexual stuff going on between her aunt and father is bad enough – but her mother abandoning her sons and hanging out with random strangers at a hotel is like a course in Bad Writing 101.

Then you have the mob subplot – which not only appears to have been hastily written but it also has a few holes in it.

When you compound that with Richmond lying in a hospital bed feeling sorry for himself – essentially I’m just kind of sick of it.

I will continue to watch throughout the duration of the second season – mostly because we’ve been promised that Rosie’s killer will be revealed in the final episode.

After that? Probably not. I think I’ll just move on and free up some time on my television schedule.

Of course, that’s assuming that ‘The Killing’ gets a third season.

AMC is used to shows getting a lot higher ratings than ‘The Killing.’ I wouldn’t be surprised if network executives just dump the show and try for something else.

Only time will tell, I guess.

What do you think? Is ‘The Killing’ living on borrowed time?