Back in the 1990s, the author Henning Mankell wrote the first Wallander books. There are 11 books in total. The first ten came out between 1990 and 2004, and the last one came out in 2009 after the BBC made a new version of the Swedish TV series Young Wallander, which was itself a remake of an earlier film series.
Even if you haven’t seen the movies, which starred Rolf Lassgrd, or the TV shows, which starred Krister Henriksson and Kenneth Branagh, the hard-boiled crime stories will be familiar. Kurt Wallander is a jaded detective who likes to think about the meaning of life and has the nose of a bloodhound for solving crimes in and around Ystad, Scania, where he grew up.
Even though the books were set in the 1990s, most of the TV shows have been changed to fit the times. For example, the Branagh series, which ran on and off from 2008 to 2016, was set in the present day, and Wallander aged along with the actor. When the last season aired, Wallander was slowly dying from Alzheimer’s.
So the idea of making a “Young Wallander” prequel to the show as they did for Morse and Endeavour didn’t seem so crazy. There are enough references to Wallander’s early cases in the books. In the first book, it’s said that he was almost killed by a suspect and that he’s been divorced. (In the books, Wallander has trouble with his relationship with his daughter Linda, who is also depressed.) Just add a few mysteries, and you’re all set.
Going back in time to the 1980s to see a young, idealistic Wallander seemed like a good idea. Also, shows that take place in the 1980s do well on Netflix. Stranger Things and Glow are two examples. But fans shouldn’t get out the neon and hairspray just yet. Young Wallander tries to be a prequel while still taking place in the present day. This makes it less of a spinoff and more of an awkward reboot.
On paper, it’s not a bad idea. This Wallander, played by Adam Plsson, is young and poor. He lives in a Swedish version of a council estate and is just trying to get by. Most of his immigrant neighbors don’t know he’s a cop. Wallander tries to keep it that way because he doesn’t want his job to make him an outsider.
But when a young boy is killed in a hate crime in his building, Wallander can’t stop it. Even though he has strong feelings about the case and a conflict of interest, he tries to be put in charge of it. Still, the lead detective, Frida Rask (Leanne Best), agrees to let him help because he says he knows what’s going on because he lives there.
But there are two things wrong with this series. The fact that Young Wallander is a prequel implies that readers will be familiar with the franchise.
We don’t get many details about Wallander’s character because we should already know him. That might work for Endeavour, which in its first few seasons relied a lot on nostalgia for the old show. You’re witnessing an unfamiliar period in Wallander’s life here.
It doesn’t help that Plsson, who was born in Stockholm and speaks English with a strong accent, plays a character who doesn’t feel like a specific prequel to any of its previous versions but rather like a mix of things that are meant to appeal to everyone.
Some attempts to bring things up to date also fail, but not because people don’t try. In contrast to the original Wallander, the show has worked hard to make the police station a diverse place. But it was also made a long time before the current protests around the world against police brutality.
Even though the show tries to show different points of view (like when Claire Perkins, who plays Wallander’s boss Becker, stands up for the rights of racist protesters), in terms of the program, institutional police racism may as well not exist.
Also, the fact that the original Wallander was set in a specific culture was a big part of why both TV shows did so well. Here, Sweden could be anywhere in Europe, like London or Paris. Netflix seems to be betting that this will be a big hit all over the world. They want the story about racism to feel real to people in the U.S., the U.K., and everywhere else. But it takes away one of the things that make the show what it is.
At the same time, the audience is treated like it’s not smart enough to figure out what’s going on without a lot of explanation. When you think about how many scenes in the first two episodes slow down as every detail is explained, you might wonder why some information about Wallander couldn’t have been included.
Since Young Wallander is on Netflix, it’s likely that there will be another season as long as enough people watch because they know the name. If it does get a second chance, we can only hope that it goes better than the first time.
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