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Stars: Elli Rhiannon Müller Osborne, Sjur Vatne Brean, Silje Øksland Krohne, Liv Mjönes, Vidar Magnussen, Mia Fosshaug Laubacher, Arthur Hakalahti, Ståle Bjørnhaug | Written by Stig Svendsen, Espen Aukan | Directed by Stig Svendsen

When I first saw the title Viking Wolf, Vikingulven in its native Norwegian, I had visions of Norse lycanthropes raiding and pillaging their way up and down the coast. Sadly that isn’t what it’s about although it does begin with a prologue, shot like a silent film for some reason, showing a raiding party under the command of Grim Gudbrand storming an abbey.

The monks warn them against going into a locked room and assuming it to be filled with treasure, smash down the door and find a snarling red-eyed wolf cub. Of course, they take it with them, and by the time their longship returns home, it’s the only thing left alive on it.

It seems unlikely that, at 58, Hugh Grant is celebrating his first Emmy nomination after a career spanning more than three decades, and which started on the small screen. Indeed, after his big breakthrough in 1994’s Four Weddings and a Funeral, he became such a big star that much of his earlier, lesser-known TV work was hastily rushed out onto video with his face dominating the packaging, so hot was the market for all things Grant. But in the shockwave of stardom that followed Four Weddings, Grant mainly kept his sights locked on the big screen.

That makes Amazon’s A Very English Scandal Grant’s first major television project since his career took flight, as television’s golden age continues to erode notions of a classist separation between the forms. And the nomination itself—for Lead Actor, Limited Series—is no surprise. As Jeremy Thorpe, the British politician forced to...