Beautifully shot in great locations. Full of English character actors like David Warner and Malcolm Tierney. Kenneth Branagh is superb as the dour Scandinavian policeman. In the first episode, he faces a serial killer with an axe, some severely traumatised young people, a separated wife who's just "met somebody", a bolshy daughter, a father with incipient Alzheimers, a young criminal profiler who thinks he knows everything... It could be corny - especially the obligatory soapy stuff about the detective's home life - but the cast ACT instead of indulging in the overdone thesping that makes series like Waking the Dead unwatchable. OK, let's face it, it IS corny. The direction (and art direction) dazzle, but we can still see all the old cop show clichés. The style is ripped off from the French cop series Engrenage (which lifted its entire plot from Murder One). Doesn't stop it from being compusively watchable, tho.