Published Aug 31, 2026, 8:02 PM EDT
Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies, television, culture, and politics online and in print since 2017. He worked as a Senior Editor in Adbusters Media Foundation from 2018-2019 and wrote for WhatCulture in early 2020. He has been a Senior Features Writer for ScreenRant since 2020.
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While the Bosch franchise deserves its success, it is also fair to say that one Netflix detective drama should have been just as big a hit as the Prime Video police procedural. The success of True Detective season 1 changed the game for police procedural shows. Where the preceding decade had been dominated by long-running network TV franchises like the CSI shows, the* Law & Order* franchise, and NCIS, now, gritty, intense character studies on cable networks were the order of the day.
It would be a few years before shows like Mare of Easttown built on* True Detective*’s appeal by casting A-list actors in more grim, small-town murder mysteries, but Prime Video’s most successful detective drama captured the cultural moment almost immediately. Debuting within a month of True Detective’s season 1 premiere, Bosch was adapted from the novel series of the same name by The Lincoln Lawyer author Michael Connelly. Although the later Netflix show based on The Lincoln Lawyer had a lighter, soapier tone, Bosch was all about R-rated brutality, dark character study, and gruesome cases.
Bosch’s story centered on Titus Welliver’s titular homicide detective, a lone wolf who made few friends as he unearthed corruption in the LAPD while hunting serial killers in the Hollywood Hills. The show’s troubled antihero proved so popular that Bosch lasted seven seasons and 68 episodes before spawning a three-season sequel series, Bosch: Legacy, almost as soon as it ended. The Bosch franchise has since continued to grow since, but Netflix’s equivalent, The Killing, struggled to last even four seasons.
The similarities between The Killing and Bosch were so numerous that it seemed like the two shows were destined to be met with similar success. Both were grounded character studies of troubled detectives who struggle with teamwork, and both were also set in vivid, instantly recognizable settings. Finally, both* The Killing and Bosch* also focused on antiheroes simultaneously investigating suspicious homicides and corruption in their own departments.
Based on the Dutch TV series Forbrydelsen, *The Killing *debuted in 2011. The series starred Mireille Enos as Sarah Linden and Joel Kinnaman as Stephen Holder, a pair of mismatched detectives tasked with solving the murder of a teenage girl, Rosie Larsen. While everything from HBO’s 2018 hit Sharp Objects to the iconic Twin Peaks has started out with a similar story setup, The Killing stood out thanks to its absorbing slow-burn storytelling and its grim, compelling central mystery.
However, The Killing was missing the one secret weapon that made Bosch such a breakout hit, despite their evident similarities. Bosch was a more serialized show in terms of plot, with its title character solving numerous cases across each season. As such, even though the show was hardly as formulaic as Law & Order or CSI, Bosch featured more satisfying moments of cases being solved than* The Killing*.
Ironically, The Killing might have lasted as long as Bosch if the show had spent less time on each case, as the series broke the golden rule of Agatha Christie’s successful murder mysteries by rarely giving any clear or definitive answers in its morally ambiguous, bleak story. The disappointment that some critics felt toward season 1’s finale could have contributed to its cancellation after season 2’s ending, although Fox and AMC later revived *The Killing *for a third season.
After AMC axed it again post season 3’s finale,** **Netflix revived the show for a fourth and final outing. Meanwhile, *Bosch’*s ongoing franchise expansion makes The Killing’s fate worse. While Prime Video’s phenomenally successful detective drama Bosch spawned a sequel series in Bosch: Legacy, a two-season spinoff in the Maggie Q vehicle Ballard, and now a prequel in the upcoming Bosch: Start of Watch, Netflix’s The Killing was somehow canceled twice within its brief four-season run.
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2011 - 2014-00-00