Wallander: Series 2

With Britain typically exporting so much quality drama across the globe, it seems anathema to find the BBC remaking the classic Swedish drama Wallander for the popular Sunday evening slot.

However, the hope that it could be a realistic pretender to the Morse crown is apt, with much of the quality coming from Kenneth Branagh's central performance as the curmudgeonly Swede who seems to be in perpetual need of a shave and a good night's sleep. This second series continues in the vein of the first by adapting some of the more well known books (themselves already filmed) based on Henning Mankell's famous gumshoe.

BBC Four were good enough to show the original show with Rolf Lassgard and then Krister Henriksson in the titular role after the first UK series aired and the makers of the Branagh show should be applauded for not entering into the cod accented world of thesps giving their take on the foreign locale, or transplanting the action to somewhere similarly bleak, like Stoke. There is the argument, however, with over 30 original episodes of the Swedish version still yet to be shown in the UK, that if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it. It is doubtful though that it would have found the popularity that this version has without its share of recognisable faces and lack of subtitles.

What is certainly kept is the sense of philosophical existentialism which seems so very Nordic, with whole scenes passing seemingly without dialogue. Instead action is substituted for haughty looks and exchanges that never sink into melodrama. Featured on this two disc set are The Faceless Killers (one of the first books to be released), The Man Who Smiled (unsurprisingly not Wallender), and The Fifth Woman (perhaps the strongest of the three).



Released on DVD on 8th February 2010 by 2Entertain.

Written by Simon Cole.