Telemystery, your source for one of the most comprehensive listings of crime drama, amateur sleuth, private investigator, mystery and suspense television series, mini-series and made-for-television movies, now available on or coming soon to DVD or Blu-ray disc, is profiling four series from our site being released this week.
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Beck Set 5
Episodes 13-15
He's got no style, no flash and he's middle-aged. But Swedish detective Martin Beck is good at one thing: methodically catching criminals so they can be put away for a long time.
His tightly-wound partner, Gunvald, is the opposite: an impulsive man who cuts a dashing figure, is in no way politically-correct and who never met a boundary he didn't leap to cross. He'll do anything to get information from a suspect, including "enhanced" interrogation techniques.
It's classic good cop/bad cop, and together with their team they bring down dangerous criminals lurking in the seedy Stockholm underworld.
Beck may be a loner but he's not anti-social; he regularly sees his daughter, with whom he has a much better relationship than when he was neglecting her growing up. And at the end of a workday, there's always an interesting conversation and a nightcap with a neighbor who gives new meaning to the word quirky.
This Swedish crime drama based on characters created by crime novelists Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. The three feature-length episodes on this set, in Swedish with English subtitles, originally aired in 2002.
Also available: Beck Set 6, Episodes 16 through 18, available on DVD.
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Spiral (Engrenages)
Season One
Intentionally monochromatic photography, starkly filmed decomposing corpses, autopsies and intense interrogations set the tone for this gritty, realistic French cop thriller.
It's a crime drama that reveals society's ever changing codes of law: a dark series with constant and increasing tension.
Season 1 begins with beautiful young woman found dead at the public dump, her face beaten to a pulp by her killer. Leading the investigation, Pierre Clement, young recently-named public prosecutor, teams up with Police Captain Laure Berthaud and examining magistrate Judge Roban. They try to solve the horrendous crime before them: a muddy affair, combining prostitution, drugs, business and politics. As Clement, Berthaud and Roban work together to see justice done, each with his own methods and beliefs, and each dealing with his own personal demons, the situation become inextricable. Their relationships are complicated, as only the closest of friends and enemies can be.
Three equally important lead characters, three different lives, three visions of justice.
This first season of the series originally aired in France (under the title Engrenages) during December 2005 and early January 2006. It is in French with English subtitles.
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Tommy & Tuppence, Partners in Crime
The Tommy & Tuppence Mysteries
Packed with period atmosphere and playful banter, Partners in Crime follows Tommy and Tuppence Beresford as they mix marriage and mystery solving. As proprietors of Blunt's Detective Agency, the flirtatious and fun-loving couple investigates cases that range from a purloined pearl to the disappearance of an Arctic explorer's fiancée.
Francesca Annis is luminous as high-spirited Tuppence, elegantly attired in fabulous 1920s fashion, and James Warwick charms as dry-witted and dapper Tommy. These 11 mysteries, which originally aired from late 1983 through early 1984, follow the pair from their first meeting through their final cases. (Note: these episodes have previously been released on DVD as two separate sets.)
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Wallander
Original Episodes Set One
Before anyone else played the part, Rolf Lassgård established the role of Kurt Wallander in the original Swedish film adaptations of Henning Mankell's bestselling crime novels. With his ragged, very human portrayal of the world-weary detective, Lassgård set the standard for all other actors who would follow.
Kurt Wallander is a cop who gets the job done; decades of coming up against criminal minds have honed his instincts for investigations and he knows where to draw the line between the job and personal vendettas … usually. He does the work on his own terms, however, so he's constantly on the outs with supervisors and under the threat of suspension.
Becoming a great cop has also created damage in all his personal relationships. But just because he's neglected all the people he loves doesn't keep him from trying to connect with his daughter, Linda, and his on-again, off-again colleague/girlfriend, Maja. He may be a lousy father and a lousier boyfriend, but nobody in Ystad does police work like Kurt Wallander.
The three feature-length episodes on this set are "The Man Who Smiled", "Firewall", and "The Pyramid", the first two based on novels in the series, the third on a short story. In Swedish with English subtitles.
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