Killer TV Shows

If you're like me, you enjoy your movies and television shows a little bloody. Life and death scenarios add a level of intrigue to an otherwise boring episode. Here is a list of the best of the violent shows out there.

True Detective is an American television crime drama series on HBO created and written by Nic Pizzolatto, with the first season directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga. Season one stars Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson (both executive producers of the series), Michelle Monaghan, Michael Potts, and Tory Kittles, and uses multiple timelines to trace two Louisiana State Police Criminal Investigations Division homicide detectives' hunt for a serial killer in Louisiana across seventeen years. The series premiered on January 12, 2014, and consisted of eight episodes which concluded on March 9, 2014. The series has received widespread critical acclaim. It would be a complete surprise if neither of the lead actors were not Emmy winners.

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The Walking Dead is an American post-apocalyptic horror drama television series developed by Frank Darabont. It is based on the comic book series of the same name by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard. The series stars Andrew Lincoln as sheriff's deputy^[3]Rick Grimes, who awakens from a coma to find a post-apocalyptic world dominated by flesh-eating zombies. He sets out to find his family and encounters many other survivors along the way.

The Walking Dead premiered on October 31, 2010, on the cable television channel AMC in the United States.^[4]

The series has been well received^[11][12] and has been nominated for many awards, including the Writers Guild of America Award^[13] and the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Drama.^[14] The series has also attained strong Nielsen ratings, surpassing various records for a cable series, including viewership of 16.1 million for its season four premiere, making it the most-watched drama series telecast in basic cable history.^[15]

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The Blacklist is an American crime drama television series that premiered on NBC on September 23, 2013. The series stars James Spader, Megan Boone, Ryan Eggold and Harry Lennix. Former government agent Raymond "Red" Reddington has eluded capture for decades, but he suddenly surrenders to the FBI with an offer that can't be refused and under one condition: Reddington will co-operate only with Elizabeth Keen, a rookie FBI profiler. The pilot episode was written by Jon Bokenkamp and directed by Joe Carnahan.^[1] Executive producers for the series include Bokenkamp, John Eisendrath, and John Davis for Sony Pictures Television, Universal Television, and Davis Entertainment. On October 4, 2013, NBC gave a back-nine-order, filling out the series' first season.^[2] On December 3, 2013, NBC renewed the show for a 22-episode second season.^[3] On May 11, 2014, owing to the show's breakout success, NBC announced the show will air an episode in the coveted post-Super Bowl timeslot in 2015.^[4]

The show has been met with critical acclaim,^[5][6] with many critics singling out Spader's performance.^[7]

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Dexter is an American television drama series. The series centers on Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), a blood spatter pattern analyst for Miami Metro Police Department who also leads a secret life as a serial killer, hunting down criminals who have slipped through the cracks of the justice system. Set in Miami, the show's first season derived from the novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter (2004), the first of the Dexter series novels by Jeff Lindsay. It was adapted for television by screenwriter James Manos, Jr., who wrote the first episode. Subsequent seasons evolved independently of Lindsay's works.

Dexter aired on Showtime from October 1, 2006, to September 22, 2013.^[1] In February 2008, reruns (edited down to a TV-14 rating) began to air on CBS, although the reruns on CBS ended after one run of the first season. The series has enjoyed wide critical acclaim and popularity, including four straight Primetime Emmy nominations for Best Drama series in its first four seasons. Season 4 aired its season finale on December 13, 2009, to a record-breaking audience of 2.6 million viewers, making it the most-watched original series episode ever on Showtime at that time.^[2][3]

In April 2013, Showtime announced that Season 8 would be the final season of Dexter.^[4] The Season 8 premiere was the most watched Dexter episode with more than 3 million viewers total for all airings that night.^[5] The original broadcast of the series finale — shown at 9 p.m. on September 22, 2013 — drew 2.8 million viewers, the largest overall audience in Showtime's history.^[6]

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Rome is a British-American-Italian historical drama television series created by Bruno Heller, John Milius and William J. MacDonald. The show's two seasons premiered in 2005 and 2007, and were later released on DVD and Blu-ray. Rome is set in the 1st century BC, during Ancient Rome's transition from Republic to Empire. The series begins with Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul, and the first series concludes with the assassination of Caesar followed by the rise of the first Emperor Augustus, also known as Gaius Octavian.

The series features a sprawling ensemble cast of characters, many of whom are based on real figures from historical records, but the lead protagonists are ultimately two soldiers, Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo, who find their lives intertwined with key historical events. Rome was a ratings success for HBO and the BBC. The series received much media attention from the start, and was honored with numerous awards and nominations in its two-series run. Co-creator Heller stated in December 2008 that a Rome movie was in development, but as of the end of 2013 no further production had been initiated. The series was filmed in various locations, but most notably in the Cinecittà studios in Italy.

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Strike Back is a British action and military television series, based on a novel of the same name by novelist and former Special Air Service (SAS) soldier Chris Ryan. The series follows the actions of Section 20, a secretive branch of the British Defence Intelligence service (DI), who operate several high risk, priority missions throughout the globe. The series began broadcasting on Sky1 on 5 May 2010, showing the first six-part series. After a second series was commissioned, it was announced that Cinemax would co-produce the franchise. The first episode of the ten-part second series, under the banner title Project Dawn in the United Kingdom, first aired on Cinemax on 12 August 2011. The ten-part third series, under the title Strike Back: Vengeance, began airing on Cinemax on 17 August 2012. On 3 October 2012, Cinemax and Sky commissioned a fourth series, which was broadcast on Cinemax beginning 9 August 2013.^[1][2] A ten-episode fifth and final season will air in 2014.^[3]

Ratings for Strike Back was relatively high for the original networks. The Sky1 premiere was viewed by almost 400,000 viewers (according to overnight figures), tripling the average audience share for the channel's time slot after three months. Project Dawn premiered to over 600,000. The Cinemax premiere in the meantime, saw the network its best ratings since 2005. The first three seasons have been released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc.

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Game of Thrones is an American fantasy drama television series created for HBO by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss. It is an adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire, George R. R. Martin's series of fantasy novels, the first of which is titled A Game of Thrones. Filmed in a Belfast studio and on location elsewhere in Northern Ireland, Malta, Scotland, Croatia, Iceland, the United States and Morocco, it premiered on HBO in the United States on April 17, 2011. Two days after the fourth season premiered in April 2014, HBO renewed Game of Thrones for a fifth and sixth season.^[4]

The series, set on the fictional continents of Westeros and Essos at the end of a decade-long summer, interweaves several plot lines. The first follows the members of several noble houses in a civil war for the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms; the second covers the rising threat of the impending winter and the mythical creatures of the North; the third chronicles the attempts of the exiled last scion of the realm's deposed dynasty to reclaim the throne. Through its morally ambiguous characters, the series explores issues of social hierarchy, religion, loyalty, corruption, civil war, crime, and punishment.

Game of Thrones has attracted record numbers of viewers on HBO and obtained an exceptionally broad and active international fan base. It received widespread acclaim by critics, although its frequent use of nudity, violence and sexual violence has attracted criticism. The series has won numerous awards and nominations, including a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Drama Series for its first three seasons, a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Television Series – Drama, a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in both Long Form and Short Form, and a Peabody Award. Among the ensemble cast, Peter Dinklage won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film for his role as Tyrion Lannister.

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Breaking Bad is an American crime drama television series that originally aired on the network AMC for five seasons, from January 20, 2008, to September 29, 2013. The show's main character is Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a struggling high school chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer at the beginning of the series. He turns to a life of crime, producing and selling methamphetamine, in order to secure his family's financial future before he dies, teaming with his former student, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul). The show, created and produced by Vince Gilligan, was set and produced in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Throughout the series, Walter produces and sells meth to earn money in order to secure the financial future of his family: his wife Skyler (Anna Gunn), and children Walter, Jr. (RJ Mitte) and Holly (Elanor Anne Wenrich). The show also features Skyler's sister Marie Schrader (Betsy Brandt), and her husband Hank (Dean Norris), a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent who is avid in solving the case involving the meth empire. Walter teams up with lawyer Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk), who helps him get into contact with drug kingpin Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito). In the fifth season, Walter heavily involves himself with Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks), Todd Alquist (Jesse Plemons) and Lydia Rodarte-Quayle (Laura Fraser).

Breaking Bad is widely regarded as one of the greatest television series of all time. By its end, the series was among the most-watched cable shows on American television. The show received numerous awards, including ten Primetime Emmy Awards, eight Satellite Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and a People's Choice Award. In 2014, Breaking Bad entered the Guinness Book of Records as the highest rated show of all time.

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