| CATEGORY | SIMILARITIES | DIFFERENCES | THEORY |
| CHARACTERS | – The hero was a female. – The victim was a female. | – The hero in the killing is a woman. However, in the missing the hero is a male. | PROPP – Every character fits into a type. |
| NARRATIVE | – The first episodes introduce the themes. | – In the missing the victim dies so it can not be fully resolved. | TODOROV – There is a beginning, middle and end. There will be a dilemma and at the end it will be resolved. |
| THEMES | – The city is safe and the countryside is bad. | – The killing someone dies so there is no hope about getting her back. – Whereas, the missing the girl comes back and it is about the hope of finding out what happened to her for all those years. | LEVI-STRAUSS – there are 2 binary opposites (good or bad) |
| REPRESENTATION | – The girl is the victim. – The hero is the detective. | – The Killing has a woman detective higher up in power than the male detective; this is radical as typically the male detective would be in charge of the female detective. – The lead detective in the missing is a male so this is reactionary. | SEMIOTICS |
| TECHNICAL CODES / LANGUAGE OF MOVING IMAGE (music, setting, props, lighting, use of camera, editing etc) | – The first 5 minutes of the 1st episode shows us what happened before or shows the conclusion and it will work back from there. | – The music in the missing fits well with what is on screen (mysterious and similar to music in a horror film. – However, the music in the killing is more cinematic and upbeat. This contrasts to what is showed on screen. | None |
