Return of "The Killing" May Help a French Show, "Spiral" A deal with Netflix helped bring "The Killing" back to AMC, starting on Sunday. "The Killing," a spooky crime thriller set in a rain-soaked Seattle that was canceled after its second season, then revived, returns to AMC this Sunday for a third season with a new case, a mostly new cast and a conundrum. The deal that helped save the show - AMC is sharing licensing costs and distribution rights with Netflix - might just as easily imperil it. Fans in Britain and Ireland will be able to stream episodes on Netflix the day after they're broadcast on AMC, while American viewers will have to wait only a few months to download the entire season. Making television series available on streaming services like Netflix or Hulu is a little like easing travel restrictions between East and West Germany at the end of the cold war: it can lead to mass desertion. With three simple words, "Suggestions for you," Netflix invites viewers to leave old series behind and sample more exotic ones from all over the world. At the moment, one of the most engrossing offerings in the thriller category is "Spiral," a French series called "Engrenages" in its original language. Sex is as critical to the climate of "Spiral" as fog is to "The Killing." "The Killing" has no great claim on national loyalty - it's an American adaptation of a Danish hit, "Forbrydelsen." Sarah Linden (Mireille Enos), the reserved, hypersensitive homicide detective, is still the heroine of "The Killing," and her more extroverted partner, Stephen Holder (Joel Kinnaman), is still at her side, but even with new colleagues, victims and suspects (including Peter Sarsgaard as a death row psychopath), Season 3 looks an awful lot like the first two: brooding clouds; menacing, slate-colored skies; and leaden seas are still featured players. The creators take a fresh start, but cling to the sepulchral atmospherics that too often take the place of narrative. The series is still suspenseful, but the dread that once again follows Sarah through damp forests, deserted tenements and shadowy, rain-washed streets diminishes with overuse. And it's particularly easy to grow impatient with the slow, gloomy pace of "The Killing" when there are more energetic series around that offer a refreshingly different look at the same kinds of crimes and conspiracies. "Spiral" became a hit on British television, where it was shown with subtitles, and word of mouth spread across the ocean. Some fans liken "Spiral" to "The Wire" because it unsparingly interweaves the many complicated and corrupt strands of the French judicial system. But it's really more like a novel by Balzac or Colette. Beneath a classic procedural, there lurks an homme fatale: a likable young man who uses social climbing, cronyism and sex to fuel his ambition. Like "The Killing," this series is centered on a solitary, intuitive and fiercely dedicated heroine, the homicide detective Laure Berthaud (Caroline Proust). Laure is caustic, spirited and obsessed with her work, and she is not nearly as successful or professionally blessed as Pierre Clément (Grégory Fitoussi), who at least at the beginning is an up-and-coming prosecutor. Pierre is handsome and high-minded, but nevertheless quick to take advantage of his advantages - be it playing tennis at an exclusive club with an influential official or sleeping with an older reporter from Le Monde who rewards him with a flattering profile in her newspaper. "Spiral," which had its premiere in France in 2005 and is now in its fourth season, has traces of "Law & Order" in that it tracks the cooperation - and conflicts - between police investigators and prosecutors (and subplots right out of the Dominique Strauss-Kahn playbook, including a powerful government official who preys on young women). In structure, it's closer to "The Killing," in that each season revolves around one central murder investigation, though "The Killing" lost many viewers when the creators dragged out the resolution of the first homicide case over two seasons. At the start of "Spiral," Pierre tangles with a courtroom adversary, Joséphine Karlsson (Audrey Fleurot), a sultry, hard-edged and self-made lawyer who is coolly unscrupulous in the defense of her clients and, most important, herself. She is Pierre's opposite - tough where he is courtly, cunning where he is candid - yet they both use allure to further their careers and their caseloads. Maître Karlsson, as she is referred to, is not a uniquely French phenotype. There are many women like her in English-language fiction, outsiders who use deceit and sex to maneuver their way to the top, from Becky Sharp to Undine Spragg to Eve Harrington. Whether male chauvinism, naïveté or simply a lack of imagination is to blame, it is harder to find classic English or American characters like such arrivistes of French fiction as Eugène de Rastignac, Julien Sorel, Georges Duroy of "Bel Ami" or, in this case, Pierre Clément, protagonists who use their sexual wiles with powerful older women to advance. Laure has no patience or finesse for their brand of office politics, and she is comparatively almost a prude - she has trysts only for her own pleasure or to protect a friend's career. Crimes on "The Killing" are solved in chaste, chilly and even ghostly settings. "Spiral," which moves between the slums and worldly salons of Paris, is for viewers who prefer a little more spice.