Danish have 'dunnit' with detective drama

A new cliché-free TV series is moving from cult status to mainstream

WHILE MOST of the most discussed and most downloaded TV drama series of recent years have come from the US – The Wire, Breaking Badand so on – a Danish crime drama (one of the best TV series I've ever seen) shows that European television is quickly catching up.

The Killing, which is on BBC4 and leaked onto the usual sources, shares surface similarities with The Wire. Both are police procedurals which feature a mayoral election as a backdrop but while the latter is "gangsta" and quickly paced, The Killingis a sedate and ponderous affair that unravels at a comparatively funereal pace.

Opening with the brutal rape and murder of a teenage girl, the show focuses on how the death impinges on her family, the police investigating the case and the political party which has been somehow linked with the crime.

You forget the subtitles a few minutes in and are sucked into this tripartite world of family, police and politics as suspects are arrested and released and extra layers of information/back stories are provided.

Devoid of all the usual clichés of police procedurals, the lead investigator, Sara Lund (outstandingly played by actress Sofie Grabol, pictured) is the key figure here.

With her constant Nicorette chewing and her aloof attitude to her male colleagues she’s actually improved on the Helen Mirren character in Prime Suspect. And thankfully, there’s no sexual-chemistry sub-plot written into the story. Lund even isolates her rather whiny boyfriend as the case-work piles up.

Copenhagen looks magnificently moody as the action unfolds below its leaden skies and while some “issues” do intrude (the integration of Muslims into Danish society, for example) the real drama is in how the victim’s family tries to cope with the loss and how Lund presses on despite sinister obstacles being put in her way.

Slightly echoing Wallander(the original Swedish version) in its cinematography and character building, The Killing, for a cop crime show, is decidedly unmacho. Everyone has a secret and it's only by prodding these out that any movement can be made on resolving the murder.

On BBC4 the show is at the halfway mark and the viewing figures suggest that it is slowly shredding its previously “cult” status. Because many people are coming to it late or playing catch-up, the various online forums dedicated to the show are full of frantic “Please don’t tell me who did it - I’m only on episode 4” pleas.

Because of the heat the show has now attracted, the BBC is rush-releasing it on DVD at the end of March. And there is also big interest in the show in the US. The TV company behind Mad Menand Breaking Badhave bought the US rights to The Killing(they plan to re-locate it to Seattle) and hope to have it ready later this year.

The most unlikely star of the show though is Sara Lund’s ever-present chunky woollen Faroe Isles jumper. Sales of the jumper have spiked over the last few months despite it costing €280 from the fashion label Gudrun and Gudrun. Accessorised with Nicorette chewing gum it’s the must-have look for the girl about town this season.