“Welcome to the second-happiest country in the world,” police detective Nils Hammer (Mads Ousdal) remarks as a new corpse is discovered in an episode of the thrillerWisting. Like much of the show itself,the tone of his remark is unembellished,understated and matter of fact.
Sven Nordin as the no-nonsense police detective William Wisting.SBS
Not every crime show in the so-called Golden Age of Television needs to announce itself as a new chapter in the genre. How many quirky,unconventional detective inspectors does the world need? Is a surreal,gory andinventive slaying (Midnight Sun,anyone?) required to get the viewer to sit up and take notice of the story that’s about to unfold? Not that long ago,crime shows went about their business with brisk efficiency;hold the fireworks,the quirky character tics,the chunky knitwear and retro sports car.
Wisting,which takes its name from the eponymous chief detective in the coastal town Larvik (best known as the birthplace of explorer Thor Heyerdahl,fun fact),has largely passed under the radar. This is despite being the most expensive show produced in Norway,owing its origins to an expansive collection of bestselling books (by Jorn Lier Horst,himself a former police investigator),most of which have been translated into English,and the overall popularity of Scandi-noir TV.
As played by Sven Nordin,perhaps the most notable thing about Wisting is his lack of affectation and vanity. He’s a doughy lump of a man,gruff and hard to read,reserved and not given to great shows of warmth or affection. We’re not even sure how good a policeman he is. Dogged and methodical,perhaps,but certainly not beyond reproach and grave misjudgments,traits that are compounded by revelations of past cases,his marriage and the loss of his wife. Like much of the show,the drip feed of information about Wisting is slow and sparing.
Thea Green Lundberg,Sven Nordin and Carrie-Anne Moss in season 1 ofWisting.SBS
He has two grown children,twins Line (Thea Green Lundberg) and Thomas (played by both Jonas Strand Gravli and Fredrik Stenberg Ditlev-Simonsen). Line is a crime reporter for a local media company,and a central theme of all three seasons of the show is the ways in which her work overlaps with,thwarts and sometimes benefits the case Wisting is investigating. There is much necessary secrecy between them.
Thomas,a young doctor,has a more difficult relationship with his father. Wisting clearly had little time for Thomas,and his attempts at reconciliation are clumsy at best,cruel at worst.
Like in the best crime shows,Wisting’s storylines delve deep into its setting. A small and modest town on the coast of Norway,Larvik is large enough that a man can die watching TV in his loungeroom and his absence goes unnoticed for months,but small enough for family secrets to become town gossip.
The first season’s 10 episodes involve a serial killer who is on the radar of the FBI,which brings US agent Maggie Griffin (Carrie-Anne Moss) and a colleague to Larvik to work alongside the local detectives. Set in winter,it’s filled with the stark beauty of the Arctic landscape,though the set-up of fast-talking,jargon-spouting FBI spooks clashing with the less-than-welcoming and plodding local agents is boilerplate cliche.
The second season’s eight episodes were originally broadcast as two four-episode seasons,and each benefits enormously from a more compact and contained story arc. The first opens dramatically,when the re-enactment of an earlier crime goes horribly wrong. Line moves into a far more central part of the story engine,while Griffin recedes into the background. Griffin returns in the next block of episodes,a sobering story of young asylum seekers drawn into criminal networks.
The just-landed third season has a very different look and pace,with Henrik Georgsson taking over from original showrunner Trygve Allister Diesen. Like the earlier episodes,it doesn’t overplay its hand,sticking to the crime procedural playbook of police work and knotty stories with surprising twists. Even in the unspoiled backwaters of remote Norway lurk shady people with unsavoury motivations and workaday coppers only a few steps behind.
Wisting is on SBS On Demand.
Find out the next TV,streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees..