So, the US version of The Killing has been axed. "Finally", may well be the response of many fans of the original version of Forbrydelsen who wondered why they bothered to remake it in the first place.

However, rather than learn from this seeming folly, executives from the US are buying up the rights to remake Nordic drama with as much enthusiasm as box-set addicts had for the original versions. FX, the home of The Shield and Justified have announced they are making a pilot of a US version of the The Bridge, where the story that hinges around a murdered woman found lying across the Swedish/Danish border will be swapped for US/Mexico. NBC is hoping to emulate the successof political drama The West Wing with an adaption of the Danish political drama, Borgen, and Those Who Kill, the Danish TV police series that was broadcast on ITV3 earlier in the year is also getting the make-over treatment.

There is a long tradition of US remakes of foreign-language TV shows and films, apparently based on the belief among industry executives that large swathes of the American public are not willing to sit through subtitled programmes, however strong the quality of the drama itself. Whether this is true or not, the terrestrial networks and cable channels seem unwilling to risk losing advertisers or subscribers in order to find out.

So, for producers looking for the next big hit the logic is obvious; buy the rights to an incredibly well-written drama with a proven track record of success in its home country, make a few tweaks here and there, and you have the next "must see" drama on your hands.

Of course it is easy to dismiss the US as having a lack of subtlety when it comes to the art of on-screen storytelling, but The Killing came from AMC, the cable channel that commissioned Mad Men and Breaking Bad – two of the bravest and most critically acclaimed dramas of recent years. And why should Homeland, the remake of the Israeli drama Hatufim, be one of the big contenders at this year's Emmys if this was really the case? Scandinavian screen writers have a huge respect for US drama, and consider series such as The Wire and The Sopranos as proof they are masters of the art. The producers of Occupied, an original TV drama written by Jo Nesbo (also considered to have development potential for the US market) that goes into production in the new year, have invited an American screenwriter over to Norway to teach them the finer points of the US style.

The UK is of course not averse to a remake; there's the BBC's lavish and heavily stylised incarnation of Detective Wallander, and – cringe, if you hadn't heard before – a British/French version of The Bridge in the pipeline, where the corpse will no doubt be found lying somewhere in the middle of the channel tunnel.

Ultimately, for fans of the original versions of Nordic TV drama it does not really matter whether remakes by foreign countries flounder or are hugely successful. What does matter is if all the money now flooding into the industry changes it for the worse.

The show's creators now have the pressure to deliver to a global audience as well as the potentially distracting trappings of international fame and success. "You have to keep your plough in the ground," says Bo Ehrhardt, a producer on the original Danish version of The Bridge. "A lot of people did their best work when no one knew who they were. You have to come up with good stories, otherwise you'll lose your small audience at home as well as the big international one."

Hopefully they will – and then foreign drama departments can continue to plunder Nordic TV drama's back catalogue as much as they like.