Don't forget that the new mystery series on PBS (Public Televsion) starring Kenneth Brannagh starts tonight.  It looks to be pretty good!

Well, we watched and I thought it was really good.  Brannagh was well cast as Wallander.

We really enjoyed the first episode. KB's a good actor. Can't say it made Sweden look very good though!

I watched the first two and had read both books, so it was interesting to see the stories brought to life. Even though I enjoyed them I thought they took the whole thing of the unshaven, messy Wallander a bit far. I also didn't think the atomsphere of Sweden and Swedish life was translated onto the 'stage" much at all. It could have been any country.

JM

Agree that the setting could be any country.  I enjoyed the two episodes so far, but I haven't read any of the books. I'll have to check them out.

We caught one episode, just by accident, as I wasn't familiar with the books.  We both really liked it, which is rare as DH is notoriously picky about realism in police shows. 

We couldn't help but compare it to Jar City, set in Iceland.  There are some similarities between the main characters, but Jar City makes the Wallender series look like a frolic through a brightly colored Disneyland!

Apparently there was a previous Wallander series that actually aired in Sweden, and the actors who were in that one were better than this current series according to most folks who have seen both. I haven't seen either one, but I've seen pictures of them and I tend to agree that the Swedish Wallander looks more accurate as I pictured him anyway.

I like a lot of Scandihoovian mysteries and Wallander's do actually seem kind of cozy compared to some. LOL I read Jar City and liked it, but I couldn't get beyond about 50 pages in the second one in that series. It just didn't click with me at all, I couldn't connect with the main character. I think my favorite Scandinavian series right now is Karin Fossum's Inspector Seijer series, which is set in Norway.

Cheryl