Wallander

Wallander is a British television series adapted from the Swedish novelist Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander novels and starring Kenneth Branagh as the eponymous police inspector. The first three-episode series, produced by Yellow Bird, Left Bank Pictures and TKBC for BBC Scotland, were broadcast on BBC One from November to December 2008. It is the first time the Wallander novels have been adapted into an English-language production. Yellow Bird, formed by Mankell, began negotiations with British companies to produce the adaptations in 2006.

In 2007, Branagh met with Mankell personally to discuss playing the role. Contracts were signed and work began on the films, adapted from Sidetracked, Firewall and One Step Behind, in January 2008. Emmy-award-winning director Philip Martin was hired as lead director. Martin worked with cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle to establish a visual style for the series. The two were keen to use the Red One digital camera, making Wallander the first British television series to do so. Watch the trailer, below, where PBS announces the series to get a feel for the show.



To watch an episode, click on its title, or the alternate links provided.

Season 1, Episode 1: Sidetracked
Kurt Wallander is a police inspector in the Swedish town of Ystad. Shortly after he has seen a young girl kill herself by self-immolation, he is called to investigate the murder of government minister Wetterstedt. He has been scalped. Wealthy business-man Carlman is murdered in the same fashion, and a serial killer is clearly responsible. Drunken ex-journalist Lars Magnusson points Wallander towards Sandin, a retired and corrupt cop, who admits that he once 'cleaned up' for both the dead men but will offer no more information. The next murder is that of an habitual criminal, who has been tortured before death. His estranged wife and teen aged son are not grief-stricken. His behaviour has traumatized his younger son and sent his daughter into a mental hospital. Following another scalping, and an appeal to the public, a former prostitute tells Wallander that all the victims were connected with a vice ring, importing very young girls into Sweden... Alternate Links:  StageVU, GorillaVid, daClips or MegaVideo.

Season 1, Episode 2: Firewall
Eighteen-year-old Sonia admits to the vicious knifing and robbery of a taxi-driver, but she is an unhelpful interviewee, claiming 'it doesn't matter anymore', before escaping custody during a power cut. Next day her dead body is discovered. The police must also investigate the bizarre demise of Mr. Falk, a physically perfect 47-year-old specimen, who nonetheless dropped down dead in the street. To add to the mystery, his corpse is stolen - from the mortuary slab next to Sonia's - and later found with the hands and feet removed. Sonia's father tells Wallander that she was raped three years earlier but her attacker escaped justice due to a false alibi given by his father - the taxi-driver she murdered. Wallander's belief that the cases are connected is justified when a search of Falk's office reveals a computer set-up identical to that of Sonia's boyfriend, who is the next victim. . . Alternate Links:  StageVU, Videozer, VideoBB, daClips or GorillaVid.

Season 1, Episode 3: One Step Behind
Three youngsters are shot dead whilst having a woodland picnic in fancy dress. One girl's mother reports her as missing but postcards from Paris supposedly sent by the daughter negate any police involvement. Then another parent reports that Wallander's troubled colleague, Svedberg, had earlier expressed an interest in the kids' movements, and then Svedberg is also found shot, photos of the dead trio being found in his flat along with one of a mystery woman, identified by Svedberg's cousin as his ex-girlfriend Louise. The corpses are found, and a friend of the victims is also slain, having told Wallander that his workmate was really gay, and that 'Louise' is a transvestite, and a wholly murderous one, who adds to his toll of dead by killing a further trio of innocents. Diagnosed as diabetic and aware that he never truly knew the dead colleague who regarded him as his best friend, Wallander must not only avenge Svedberg but halt a psychopath from an ordinary but obvious walk of life from striking far closer to home. Alternate Links:  StageVU, daClips, Videozer, VideoBB or GorillaVid.

Season 2, Episode 1: Faceless Killers
An elderly couple, the Lovgrens, are murdered at their isolated farmstead and Mrs. Lovgren's last word to Wallander seems to be "Foreigners." When this is leaked to the press a migrant labourers' camp is torched and a foreign worker shot by anonymous right wing vigilantes. Daughter Linda, dating a Syrian doctor, accuses Wallander of racism and, although Lovgren's brother-in-law tells the police that the dead man had a hidden fortune, which his murderers stole, and an illegitimate son, neither fact is immediately helpful. However, Wallander's obsessive pursuit of the owner of a car used in the revenge killing yields a result, though it almost costs him his job and the Lovgrens' slayers are finally cornered in a fairground. Alternate links: StageVU, NovaMov, VideoWeed, MegaVideo or zShare.

Season 2, Episode 2: The Man Who Smiled
Lawyer Sten Tostensson tells Wallander he believes his old father's death in a car crash was homicide but Wallander is reluctant to act until Sten is found hanged and the pathologist claims that he was murdered. Sten's secretary shows Wallander a postcard of Africa with a text threatening the lives of father and son and wealthy philanthropist Harderberg, a client of Sten's, admits to also having received one.All were posted from the same hotel,apparently by industrialist Jurgen Nordfeldt, who survives an attempt to kill him. Nordfeldt had stumbled on a racket importing body parts from Africa which Wallander, helped by ex-cop Anders,now Harderberg's security guard, must resolve. Alternate Links: MegaVideo, Videozer or VideoBB.

Season 2, Episode 3: The Fifth Woman
Three elderly men, Holger Eriksson, Gosta Runfeldt and Eugen Blomberg, are murdered in seemingly unrelated incidents. The smell of perfume on Runfeldt's suitcase suggests a woman's involvement. None are mourned by their families, who regarded them as bullies and womanizers, which shocks Wallander, whose own father has just died. A dedication in a book by Eriksson to a woman called Krista leads to the members of a former self-help group for abused women, attended by Vanja, Runfeldt's ex-lover. Is one of these women the killer? Alternate Links: daClips, GorillaVid or Videozer.

Watch season three here.