| CATEGORY | SIMILARITIES | DIFFERENCES | THEORY |
| CHARACTERS | the detective who has a ‘natural’ instinct for law and order | The Killing, The mising has the main detective as female | PROPP |
| NARRATIVE | the first episode often introduces a lot of different characters | The Missing – The missing girl comes back The Killing – The missing girl dies | TODOROV |
| THEMES | the use of binary oppostions around familiar themes: family, community, law and order, justice. | The Missing – Theme of hope The Killing – Theme of death | LEVI-STRAUSS |
| REPRESENTATION | reactionary representations of police, family, law and order, urban/rural | The Killing: Radical – detectives are females in the show whereas detectives are normally seen as males. | SEMIOTICS |
| TECHNICAL CODES / LANGUAGE OF MOVING IMAGE (music, setting, props, lighting, use of camera, editing etc) | opening montage sequence that often gives clues as to the whole series – themes, locations, characters, events etc. | The Killing – Uses upbeat music The Missing – Uses dark and low music | |
