Ed Martin Live from TCA: AMC and BBC America Reveal Promising New Series at TCA

The debut of a new AMC series is always a big event at a Television Critics Association tour, but the presentation yesterday of Hell on Wheels, a western drama that centers on the construction of the transcontinental railroad in post-Civil War America, was even more newsworthy than the norm.

That's because TCA members were bursting with questions about two other AMC series, The Killing and The Walking Dead, both of which have made recent news. The Killing had fans in a dither when it ended its first season without solving the murder mystery that had propelled it from pilot to season finale, even though the network had apparently said something when it unveiled the show at the Winter 2011 TCA tour that many critics took to mean the identity of the murderer would be known by season's end. Instead, or regardless, executive producer Veena Sud whipped up several cliffhangers in the final episode designed to bring the audience back for season two without identifying the killer. The Walking Dead made big news earlier this week when executive producer Frank Darabont left the show just three days after taking part in its highly successful panel at Comic-Con and three days before AMC's presentation at TCA.

"If we had to do anything differently, I think we would certainly have taken a different approach with respect to managing the expectations of what was going to happen within [the first season of 'The Killing']," admitted Joel Stillerman, AMC's Senior Vice President of Original Programming, Production and Original Content, when asked about the murder mishap. "I can tell you that it was never intentionally meant to mislead anybody. There was never one meeting or e-mail or conference call where we talked about it in those terms. Our goal was to create a brilliant piece of character-based storytelling that was mixed with a genre that we all love, which is the murder mystery, and try and do something a little different than has been done in that space before. We think we got there, but we definitely didn't manage expectations the way that they should have been managed."

"I will just say to save anybody the trouble of asking, you will find out who killed Rosie Larsen in Season 2," he added.

Stillerman offered no new information about Darabont's sudden departure, but took the opportunity to once again praise his contributions to the first season of Walking Dead. Strangely, AMC chose not to present a panel for the show at TCA, even though it didn't present one last summer, either, and even though most critics have championed the series. That was a shame, because the cast and producers did extremely well at Comic-Con and would probably have been very effective with TCA members, as well.

The response to Hell on Wheels, which debuts November 6, was very positive, which is no surprise, given the reputation AMC has earned for its original series during the last five years. Stillerman reminded critics that the network's Emmy winning 2006 miniseries Broken Trail remains the highest rated original production in its history, and that the network maintains a very loyal fan base of western aficionados.

Asked about the inevitable comparisons to the last original Western series on cable, HBO's ultra-violent and very adult Deadwood, Wheels executive producer Joe Gayton replied, "We wanted to find our own way and separate ourselves from Deadwood. We've called this an 'Eastern' as opposed to a 'Western' because it really is about dragging this sort of almost urban ghetto across the prairie and industrializing this country. If there are favorable comparisons to Deadwood we'll take them. I'd love that. But we really wanted this to be original and look and feel different than any Western you've seen before. Hopefully we are doing that."

Overall it was a day of extraordinary panels at TCA. BBC America, which like AMC has fast become one of the critics' favorite networks, presented panels for a number of promising new series, including The Hour, a thriller set behind the scenes at the BBC's newsroom in 1956 London; Bedlam, a horror story set in a haunted apartment building and Friday Night Dinner, a comedy about a weekly gathering of a traditional Jewish family. BBCA also brought the current stars of Doctor Who, Matt Smith and Karen Gillan, to TCA for the first time.

The day continued with four typically interesting panels from National Geographic Channel and Nat Geo WILD, including one for a 9/11 anniversary special featuring an in-depth interview with President George W. Bush. Before the panels began, National Geographic Networks President Steve Schiffman offered a brief remembrance of Tim Hetherington, the photo journalist and filmmaker who was at TCA last summer with his production partner Sebastian Junger to promote their movie Restrepo and was killed three months ago while covering the civil war in Misrata, Libya.

HBO filled the afternoon with panels for a number of specials, along with one for its hit series True Blood and another for the final season of its long-running comedy Entourage.

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