Kenneth Branagh's Wallander is back on BBC1 - fingers-crossed, a review later today, although I keep saying things like that and they never materialise. Just to be very confusing, he's the third actor to play Kurt Wallander. There have been two previous versions of Wallander made in Sweden.
The first series were straight adaptations of the Henning Mankell novels, starred Rolf Lassgård and ran from 1995 to 2007. Here are clips from Sidetracked and Firewall, both of which have also been adapted as Ken stories. See how similar yet different they are:
The second series - bar the first story, which was adapted from a Linda Wallander novel called Before The Frost and which also got shown in cinemas - were straight-to-DVD original stories featuring the characters from the novels but not the plots. They starred Krister Henriksson and they're the ones BBC4 showed last year.
A second series of movies has been made: as with the first series, Mankell is providing the storylines and other writers are finishing the scripts. Tragically, however, the woman who played Linda Wallander - Johanna Sällström - committed suicide so Lena Endre is playing the part instead. Here's a trailer for the first of the new episodes, and if your Swedish is up to the job, I've followed it with a second trailer that has interviews with the actors and director.
The third series stars our Ken and, well, more on that later.
January 4, 2010 | Reply
"The Three Wallanders"... sounds like a high-wire act....