2. • The Killing (Danish: Forbrydelsen, meaning
The Crime) is a BAFTA Award winning and
Emmy nominated Danish crime TV series
produced by Danmarks Radio. Each series
follows the police investigation of one specific
case, day by day, with a one-hour episode
covering 24 hours of the investigation. As of
2012, there have been two series, with a third
in production. There has been an American
remake of the first series.
3. • The first series consists of 20 one-hour
episodes that follow the police investigation
into the murder of a young woman, from its
commencement on 3 November through to its
conclusion on 22 November.
4. • Detective Inspector Sarah Lund is looking forward to her
last day with the Copenhagen police department. She is
due to move to Sweden with her fiancé and transfer to the
Swedish police, but everything changes when a 19-year-old
woman, Nanna Birk Larsen, disappears only to be found
raped and brutally murdered. Along with her colleague,
Detective Inspector Jan Meyer, Sarah is forced to head the
investigation as it soon becomes clear that she and Meyer
are chasing a very intelligent and dangerous murderer.
5. • Over twenty days, the complex plot interweaves the story
of the actual investigation; the pressures on the family
suffering their loss; a hard-fought, vicious mayoral election
campaign involving a crusading candidate who seems to be
linked to the murder; the strong whiff of political
corruption; the changing dynamics of the relationships
between Lund and several characters she works with,
including her boss, who is removed from duty, to be
replaced by a new man who, at first, doesn’t trust her, but
who then puts his faith in her; the fragile state of the
relationship between Lund and her son and Lund and her
fiancee.
6. • Sarah Lund is Deputy Superintendent at Police Headquarters in
Copenhagen. Her level head and strong sense of intuition have earned
her the esteem of her colleagues, who will be sad to see her leave when
she moves from Denmark to remote Sigtuna, outside Stockholm, with
Swedish boyfriend Bengt and young son Mark (from a previous
relationship). Sarah, Bengt and Mark are in the process of moving when
the murder investigation forces Sarah to postpone her plans and stay in
Copenhagen to deal with the case. Her obsessive nature leads to the
break-up of her relationship, the harassment of several innocent
suspects, her removal from the investigation (and reinstatement later),
the murder of her partner and, at the end, it appears she has lost her job
– although her new boss, recognising her investigative ability and the
value of her intuition, brings her on board for another investigation for
series two…
7. • Mise-en-scene – the warm colours seem to have been
desaturated to give the show a bleak look to reflect the
brutal nature of the crime; this is heightened by the
often gloomy, wet weather and the darkened buildings
that a lot of the action takes place in – the scene where
Meyer is killed, for example. The opening scene, pre-
titles sequence à la CSI features a scantily clad young
woman being pursued through the woods at night.
8. • Many of the typical tropes of police shows are present:
colleagues arguing; colleagues being supportive; conflict
with superiors; interviews with suspects; suspecting the
wrong person – several times, to keep the plot’s momentum
going; dead ends and red herrings, such as the arrest of the
politician and the schoolteacher, foot and car chases,
shootings and killings; a maverick cop whose private life and
family suffer; colleagues weighing up the evidence; use of
forensics; revelation of the actual killer at the end – and it
turns out that it is someone the audience is familiar with
and a former suspect.
