You're Killing Me Composer on Breaking into Episodic TV, Themes & More

Posted in: TV | Tagged: acorn tv, You're Killing Me

You're Killing Me Composer on Breaking into Episodic TV, Themes & More

Musician Alexandra Petkovski spoke with us about her evolution as a composer for the Acorn TV murder-mystery series You're Killing Me.

Published Fri, 17 Jul 2026 13:37:08 -0500
by Tom Chang
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Article Summary

• Alexandra Petkovski explains how she landed You’re Killing Me and why the Acorn TV mystery’s witty tone hooked her.
• The You’re Killing Me composer breaks down her collaboration with creator Robin Bernheim to shape themes and score.
• Petkovski reveals how New England coastal sounds, seashell percussion, seagulls, and vocals define You’re Killing Me.
• She shares how mentors Siddhartha Khosla and Linda Perry helped her tackle episodic TV and evolve key motifs.

Alexandra Petkovski, professionally known as FJØRA, has developed an impressive, eclectic career, with her work featured on TV shows and video games, including Love Is Blind, the CW 2023 Kung Fu remake, Freeform's Motherland: Fort Salem, and Hulu's Paradise. It made sense for her to take her next evolutionary leap into composing, already doing so for a variety of shorts from 2021 to 2024. In her second foray into episodic television, her latest is the Acorn TV mystery crime series You're Killing Me, which follows a bestselling novelist (Brooke Shields) and an aspiring writer (Amalia Williamson) as they join forces to solve her friend's murder, forming an unexpected partnership as they search for the killer. Petkovski spoke to Bleeding Cool about how she got involved, working with creator/showrunner Robin Bernheim, developing her craft under the mentorship of musicians Siddhartha Khosla and Linda Perry (of 4 Non Blondes), and developing the series and themes.

Composer Alexandra Petkovski on Developing Her Musical Journey on Acorn TV's 'You're Killing Me'

Bleeding Cool: What intrigued you about 'You're Killing Me' and how'd you get involved?

Petkovski: First, it was such a fun, great process, and it was the music supervisor who reached out. I worked on a past project, I think it was for Amazon Prime before, anyway, that he was on, and he thought of me for this. I did a mentorship with Siddhartha Khosla, who does the music for 'Only Murders in the Building,' which was great, so when the music supervisor, Kyle, read the Bible on the pitch deck on this initial storyline, which was 'Only Murders…' meets 'Hacks' meets 'Gilmore Girls,' like the witty banter and that sort of stuff. He thought of me, and then I ended up pitching for the gig that way. He introduced me to the whole Founders Cove team. "Founders Cove" is the setting of 'You're Killing Me.'

Did you work with Robin creatively to get the themes down and define what you're trying to achieve for the show?

Absolutely, yeah, 100 percent. It was very collaborative, which I love, and from the get-go, when I was sketching out themes, motivic development, discerning the arc, how the music would unfold, Robin was really at the helm as a true guidepost throughout. It certainly informed it.

When you're trying to develop the tone and mood, were there things that you wanted to come in fresh or things that inspired you to create that for the show?

Yeah, 100 percent. I'm a major dork, so I thought it would be really cool to integrate components specific to the landscape and setting of the story. So, it's New England, maritime, coastal kind of energy. I decided to sample percussion in the form of seashell sounds and seagulls that I utilize. Interwoven in the ambient moments and sense of certain themes and cues, plus there's voice. I mean, it's my voice, and that's peppered throughout as well.

I know your music has been used before in other shows and films. Was it much of a transitional leap for you to get into more episodic television? How did Siddhartha and I read that you also work with Linda Perry…how did they help develop that for you and for the show?

For me, across all the mentorship opportunities I've been gifted with, it's about extracting valuable lessons from both Sid and Linda. I learned the commodity that is confidence and being able to learn how to make sure I trust my gut and my instincts when it comes to sonic crafting, as this was the first major network series that I scored and got to craft custom songs for. With the brevity of that and longer-form narrative in general, the overall arc and how I would approach the development of themes was something I certainly learned from mentoring. Also, working together with Sid and Linda was fabulous.

Was there a particular scene or theme that was most difficult for you on the show?

I would say the most difficult, well, most challenging, let's say, was the through line of the main title theme, which is one of the most prevalent motifs of the series. It's called 'The Light Bulb' theme, and it's really when the two main characters, Brooke Shields' character, Ally, and Amalia's character, Andi, solve the crimes together and connect the dots. For me, it was the iterations of that theme, and how do we keep it not stale? Also, how does it match the pacing of certain episodes? Because each episode, although the format is that there's a murder in the town in each episode, the pacing of the solving of the crime itself, and when all the puzzle pieces fit together, differ between episodes. It was really threading that needle, I would say.

Do you have a singular or multiple takeaways about your experiences working on the show as far as how that made you better as a composer?

Honestly, since I come from a music [background] for trailers and video game theme songs. I come from those sorts of worlds where I'm expediting [my work] with deadlines ever looming and present. So, working under pressure is something I'm used to. However, I would say in this format, it was about how do we balance the intersection. Between serving, because the story is king-like, supporting the story, that's king. It was the balancing act of serving the story, but how do we also satiate all the creative ideas that the team had? When collaboration is one of the pillars of the process, it's amazing, but it also means how we can navigate balancing everyone's expectations and desires of what they want to happen, then also what's best for the picture and story. I think across the gamut, and these are hour-long episodes, so how I was able to kind of balance those spaces, I would say, was definitely the singular thing I really learned in the process.

You're Killing Me, also starring Tom Cavanagh, is available on Acorn TV.

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