June 2020 Update:
Wallander has moved to MHz Choice. There are two Wallander series in MHz Choice.
————————– NEW REVIEW ————————————-
From Netflix:
By now (August 2016) you can stream from Netflix 3 seasons of the British Wallander with Kenneth Branagh. Each episode lasts about an hour and a half. Each of the 3 seasons offers 3 independent stories. However, you should start from the beginning and watch in sequence because running through the entire 9 stories is the theme of Wallander’s personal life: loneliness, struggles with his eccentric father, relation with his daughter, etc.
One advantage of streaming is that there are captions.
More than ever, I consider these somewhat “noir” stories a DO NOT MISS!
————— OLD REVIEW ———————————————
From NetFlix:
Kenneth Branagh delivers a bravura performance as Swedish sleuth Kurt Wallender in three stories drawn from Henning Mankell’s best-sellers. With violence on the rise in once-peaceful Ystad, the dour detective battles crime as well as personal demons. This trio of TV mysteries finds Wallander connecting a woman’s suicide with government corruption, pursuing a cabbie’s killer and coping with the murder of a colleague during a tough investigation.
There is already a review for “Before the Frost (2002)” which was an excellent Wallander story. The present review is for a two-disk series (two separate NetFlix disks) from 2008. Kenneth Branagh again does an outstanding job portraying a dedicated detective whose personal life is in shambles. As such, the three stories (the second disk contains two stories) are dark. Kenneth Branagh is shabby and haggard throughout.
One caveat: there are NO subtitles available for those of us who are hard of hearing.
Also remember that everything takes place in Sweden despite the actors being British.