AMC’s ‘The Killing’ is Cancelled, Again

Choose whichever morbid metaphor you want, but there will be no further stays of execution for “The Killing,” the AMC crime drama that was canceled last year and revived in the spring has now been canceled a second, and likely final, time.

On a Tuesday night crowded with other news events, AMC said in a statement: “We have made the difficult decision not to move forward with a fourth season of ‘The Killing.’ We want to thank our great partners at Fox Television Studios, creator Veena Sud, an extraordinary cast and the dedicated fans who watched.”

“The Killing,” a moody police procedural adapted from the Danish series “Forbrydelsen” and starring Mireille Enos and Joel Kinnaman as Seattle detectives Sarah Linden and Stephen Holder, made a splashy debut in 2011, becoming notorious for a first-season finale that did not resolve the murder case at the center of its plot.

Its ratings declined during Season 2 (when the original murder mystery was finally tied up) and AMC said in July 2012 that it was canceling the show. But Fox Television Studios, which produced “The Killing,” said at that time that it would seek a new broadcast partner for the series.

The following January, it was announced that a new deal had been struck among the studio, AMC and Netflix, and that “The Killing” would return again in June.

The third season of “The Killing,” which added the actor Peter Sarsgaard (“Boys Don’t Cry”) to the cast as a death-row inmate, drew some admiring but unenthusiastic reviews. “The series is still suspenseful,” Alessandra Stanley wrote in The New York Times, “but the dread that once again follows Sarah through damp forests, deserted tenements and shadowy, rain-washed streets diminishes with overuse.” And ratings did not improve for the series, which drew about 1.4 million viewers for new episodes, about the same as it did in its second season.

In its own statement on Tuesday night, Fox Television Studios said, “While we would have loved to produce a fourth season for AMC, FTVS is immensely grateful to everyone involved with this moving series.”

“The Killing” is one of several signature dramas coming to an end at AMC. Though the network is continuing with “The Walking Dead,” its popular horror series, “Breaking Bad” will wrap up its storyline this month, and “Mad Men” is slated to conclude next year. Meanwhile, the network has struggled to find a substantial audience for “Low Winter Sun,” another crime series that had its premiere in August.