WALLANDER
British TV detective series

My sister has been talking about Wallender for a long time and I finally got to watch a few episodes last week. I was hooked immediately.

The TV series is adapted from Swedish novelist Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander novels. It is set in Sweden, particularly in the town of Ystad in the southern county of Skåne. Prior to the British production a Swedish version was made. The author of the novels subsequently approached British companies with a view to making a British version. One Swedish critic regarded the British version as superior to the Swedish one.

The BBC has produced four seasons in the series, each comprising 3 (long, 90-minute) episodes: in 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2016 respectively.

The series has received great critical acclaim and is clearly in a class all of its own. It is very European in sensibility; more than that, it is very Scandinavian. The series could never have emanated from North America, for example - the sensibility is simply too different.

One of the many interesting facts about the BBC series is that it led to an upsurge in tourism from the UK to the region of Sweden where the novels are set. Traditionally, the main tourists to Sweden had been Germans, the British regarding Sweden as cold and expensive.

The plots (of the episodes I've seen) are slow-moving but meticulously and very cleverly crafted. The episodes are complete in themselves and don't follow on from previous ones. The story lines are rather grim, so the series is not suitable for what my sister calls "binge-watching". I will continue and finish watching the remainder of the seasons the next time I'm in South Africa, but I will space the episodes and seasons out.