Best on the box

La Rentrée is officially upon us and one must rally one's energy for a new year and a new round of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed students eager for knowledge. But with summer out like a light, and the light itself fading earlier, we can look forward to cosy nights of telly-watching and DVD-fests.

I know it's a bit early for a best of the year list, but some of this year's stand-out TV series have a second season on the way to look forward to this winter - yay! - so here's my list of top favourites whose second series I can't wait to see ...

1) Who killed Nanna Birk-Larsen? was the question everyone was asking when the Danish series The Killing (Forbrydelsen, in Danish with English sub-titles) aired earlier this year in Europe and Britain. This is unquestionably top of my list and the best thing I've watched in ages. I read that the Germans and Dutch loved it for the intelligent plot, while the British loved it for the characters; put these two elements together and you begin to see why it developed a cult following. 

Cast of Forbrydelsen/The Killing

Against a backdrop of a bleak Copenhagen winter, Sofie Grabol (centre above and below) plays homicide detective Sarah Lund, hell-bent on solving the murder of a teenage girl. I'd never heard of this actress, though Danish colleagues tell me she is Denmark's finest and a veteran of Ibsen and Strindberg in the theatre. Her Sarah Lund goes against all clichés of woman detectives you've ever seen; her performance is unique and memorable, the kind that inspired heated debates on Killing-besotted websites as to whether she is a feminist role-model or a screw-up. 

Dressed in wellies and a trademark woolly jumper (the jumper alone having occupied as much media space as the speculation on whodunnit), with no make-up, her pony-tail grows progressively messier and her personal life more shambolic in direct proportion to her growing obsession with finding the killer. You may not want to be her, exactly, but you will badly wish you could have her as your friend.

There's no glamour, no car chases, glossy sex or crime-plot formulae in The Killing - just a great plot that keeps everyone guessing right up to the brilliantly written and acted final reveal, and a cast of finely-drawn, complex characters. One of these is Pernille Birk-Larsen, mother of the dead girl (played by Ann Eleonora Jorgenson, below), whose raw grief and unravelling is almost unbearable to watch, and whose relationship with her husband is one of the most moving I've ever seen acted. A thriller with two strong, finely acted women like this is almost too good to believe.

... though lets not forget cool politician Troels Hartmann (actor Lars Mikkelsen), surely the thinking woman's bit of Danish crumpet, who is running for Mayor of Copenhagen and whose office becomes embroiled in the murder case ...

(I'll include two pics of Troels, why not - I'd vote for him any day)

On a final note, The Killing has been re-made completely in America, using an American setting and actors - apparently on the grounds that, notwithstanding its huge success in Britain and Europe, American viewers would not cope with sub-titles. I find it difficult to wrap my head around this way of thinking, but mostly what I think is: how insulting to American viewers! If you haven't seen it, get hold of the original and look forward to being immersed in the intriguing cadences of Danish while being completely and utterly gripped by the story. (And avoid the temptation of reading about The Killing on the internet in case of spoilers!). Me, I have series 2 on pre-order from Amazon already (out early December).

2) For British crime, we were treated to Case Histories on BBC1 in June - the screen adaptation of the first two of Kate Atkinson's wonderful series of books featuring private investigator Jackson Brodie (I reviewed the latest of her Brodie novels, Started Early, Took my Dog here - see the side-bar), set in photogenic Edinburgh ...  

I was both excited and nervous about this series, having very strong feelings about who could play the complex and engaging Jackson (anyone who's read the books will understand this). As it turned out I thought Jason Isaacs (above), although a sexed-up version of his literary character (see here for an amusing view on this), did a pretty good job, though my household saw some heated arguments about the merits or downright cheek (depending on point of view) of various departures from the novels (see here).

Fenella Woolgar and Natasha Little as the Land sisters, and Amanda Abbington as DC Louise Munroe


There's talk of a second series, though no date yet - one lives in hope. Meanwhile here's a taster with a typically funny scene played by Isaacs and his secretary, wonderfully played by Zawe Ashton ...






3) On a different note, and filling the gap for a period piece, was The Hour, which screened last month on BBC2. Set in 1950s London, it's about a group of idealistic young BBC news reporters who set up a new, cutting-edge (for the time) current affairs programme as an alternative to the dull, stuffy, propaganda-style Beeb news reporting they've been weaned on ...

Against a background of the developing Suez crisis, various sub-plots unfold, including MI6-sanctioned murders, Soviet spies and KGB recruits. Besides all the action there are doomed romantic liaisons, unrequited love and plenty of the class tensions and resentment the Brits excel at.

If you're a fan of The Wire, you'll be thrilled to see Dominic West going native in this one as the smooth, upper-class newsroom anchor and romantic lead (with Romola Garai above). But the star attraction for me was the wonderful Anna Chancellor (below) as whisky- and work-driven foreign correspondent Lix Storm ...

For some reason The Hour evoked many comparisons with Mad Men (which incidentally would have to top my list of best-of-2010 TV shows if I'd made one), though the two in fact have nothing in common besides an overlap in period and fashion. But I did laugh at one reviewer's comment in the Guardian who was amused to "see how American drama [Mad Men] idealises the aesthetic of its past, while we make it look really grimy and all the clothes look like worsted and everybody's tights look as though they're just about to fall down." Season 1 is available on DVD and a second season is in the making.


4) If you're still with me, Silk deserves a mention, as a very watchable legal drama series. Maxine Peake and Rupert Penry-Jones (below) are the leads, as two London barristers ambitious for QC status. Predictably, class and gender issues get in the way (he's posh, she's working class, while the roles are reversed for their two pupils (bottom), and the most interesting character is possibly the Machiavellian senior clerk (played by Neil Stuke, bottom) who orchestrates everyone's lives ... This is on DVD and series 2 will air early next year.

Finally, in an honours category of its own, I'm thrilled that Downton Abbey is returning this month for a second season - see here. Period drama (series one opened with the sinking of the Titanic and closed with the announcement of World War I), written by Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park, Vanity Fair) and with a fabulous cast, it's what the English do best, innit ...

... and with another round of the re-made Upstairs Downstairs, Downton's rival in the period stakes, due after Christmas, my viewing happiness will be complete. Out come the woolly socks and red wine, up go the feet ...