In one of the more surprising television announcements of the New Year, AMC says it will make a third season of crime-drama The Killing, despite cancelling the show last summer. Executives have made a deal with Fox Television Studios to produce new episodes of the programme, based on the acclaimed Danish series Fobrydelsen.

The American adaption drew early praise for it slick debut in 2011, though it never matched the Danish version for suspense and clever twists. In fact, fans of the series became incensed when the resolution of the central murder mystery was put off until season two. In a statement on Tuesday, AMC announced that lead stars Mireille Enos - who plays detective Sarah Linden - and Joe Kinnaman - who plays her partner Stephen Holder - will return for the new series. Somewhat comically, the network said the new instalment "will focus on a new case, which will be resolved over the course of 12 episodes," and that production will begin in Vancouver on February 25, 2013. 

As for the specifics of the new series, AMC released a brief synopsis that read, "A year after closing the Rosie Larsen case, Sarah Linden is no longer a detective. But when her ex-partner Stephen Holder's search for a runaway girl leads him to discover a gruesome string of murders that connects to a previous murder investigation by Linden, she is drawn back into the life she thought she'd left behind."

AMC had initially said it was cancelling The Killing as its audience had declined from an average of 2.2 million to 1.6 million. 

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