The setting in Ystad is superb, and Kenneth Branagh is his usual excellent self, but from a story standpoint, if compared with loads of other British series such as P.D.James, Sherlock Holmes, Midsommer Murders, Foyle's War, or Inspector Morse, Wallander is probably the dumbest cop on television. In more than one story, he leaves key witnesses unguarded who are subsequently murdered. And then he gets to feel guilty. In order to create what I term "artificial tension" in the last five minutes of this story, he misses a totally obvious clue to any viewer. One of his assistant detectives is even dumber and doesn't want to work very hard. Then, if you compare Wallander with American TV such as NCIS, NCIS LA, or Criminal Minds, the sense of "family" amongst the four detectives is very weak. There is no charm between them. So, you are ultimately left with Branagh doing an excellent job of sulking for 90 minutes, with his beautiful daughter trying to get him out of his continual funk. Unless I'm watching some action film (like James Bond) or the stupendous computer feats of NCIS, in which I do not expect realism, I ultimately have a problem with stories where tension is created because Wallander does stupid things like letting the key suspect walk out the back door of a restaurant on the pretext of going to the restroom while he just stands at the bar, and belatedly realizes what he has allowed to happen. Finally, the series is filmed with a Red One digital camera which compresses the image and does not restore it to its original full image.
Review of One Step Behind
