Hitchcoc A group of young people who are out for some thrills are gunned down by a non-descript shooter as they enjoy a picnic dressed in period clothes (it looks like the French Revolution but I have no knowledge of this). One of the kids that was supposed to be with them, wasn't able to go for various reasons. She is now overwhelmed with guilt and remorse. Wallander now must wade through a lot of sludge to get a handle on this person. Meanwhile, his taciturn partner is murdered in his apartment. He has some connection to these kids, but we don't know what it is. He proves an utter enigma. It turns out he is probably gay and Wallander is amazed he never knew this. Things become sticky when the woman who escaped harm is murdered after connecting with Wallander. It appears that someone has a vendetta against the Swedish cop, that he is somehow in the middle of all this. We are quickly immersed in the gay community and danger lurks there. A mysterious woman is at the center of all this and her identity is critical. There is some really lousy police work here and some rather homophobic stuff going on.

rangeriderr The setting in Ystad is superb, and Kenneth Branagh is his usual excellent self, but from a story standpoint, if compared with loads of other British series such as P.D.James, Sherlock Holmes, Midsommer Murders, Foyle's War, or Inspector Morse, Wallander is probably the dumbest cop on television. In more than one story, he leaves key witnesses unguarded who are subsequently murdered. And then he gets to feel guilty. In order to create what I term "artificial tension" in the last five minutes of this story, he misses a totally obvious clue to any viewer. One of his assistant detectives is even dumber and doesn't want to work very hard. Then, if you compare Wallander with American TV such as NCIS, NCIS LA, or Criminal Minds, the sense of "family" amongst the four detectives is very weak. There is no charm between them. So, you are ultimately left with Branagh doing an excellent job of sulking for 90 minutes, with his beautiful daughter trying to get him out of his continual funk. Unless I'm watching some action film (like James Bond) or the stupendous computer feats of NCIS, in which I do not expect realism, I ultimately have a problem with stories where tension is created because Wallander does stupid things like letting the key suspect walk out the back door of a restaurant on the pretext of going to the restroom while he just stands at the bar, and belatedly realizes what he has allowed to happen. Finally, the series is filmed with a Red One digital camera which compresses the image and does not restore it to its original full image.

Tweekums Kenneth Branagh returns as Swedish detective Kurt Wallander and he is not a happy man. The episode opens with a group of friends all dressed up and having a party in the woods, until an unseen killer shoots them. After a while one of their parents reports them missing although the situation is confused by the fact that postcards that appear to come from her daughter have been sent from around Europe. The case isn't taken too seriously until the policeman on the case is murdered. When Kurt starts investigating the murder of his colleague he starts to think the two cases might be linked. His investigation takes him to Isa, the fourth member of the group of friends, who due to illness couldn't join the others at the party, unfortunately when he finds her she has taken an overdose that would have killed her had he not found her. As she recovers in hospital the party goes are discovered buried in the woods and soon after being told she flees. Kurt is determined to find her and when a clue suggests she may have gone to a remote island he heads there. On the island he finds her and they talk and develop a friendship of sorts... this makes it all the worse when she too is killed but strangely the killer makes no attempt on Kurt's life suggesting the crime may be about him somehow. Soon after there is another killing which looks random but in fact leads to the Ystad police realising how the killer is finding his victims, they just have to find him before he can strike again.Kenneth Branagh put is a great performance as Wallander, watching his performance makes the viewer believe they are really watching someone on the verge of a breakdown. Another notable performance was Flora Spencer-Longhurst who really shone as the doomed Isa. The story was fairly tragic throughout so be prepared to shed a few tears.

Niklas Pivic A nice step back into form. Wallander finds a colleague, Svedberg, opening up about emotions and the police department where they work. He is quite soon found dead, and the more an over-worked and exhausted Wallander looks into the case, the more it seems to be connected with another, and it seems like a serial killer is loose. I found the parallel story-lines working very well together, and the cinematography, especially the use of light and focus, was really good. Wallander's persona blooms in this film, where it touches on his family life as in the first. Or rather, it touches the parts of him that seemingly wilt and make him very human; the emptiness that haunts him from within, branching out as he tries to solve the case is portrayed beautifully, not to mention how exciting this episode was. This last installment of the Wallander mini-series made me long for new episodes!