TV review: Happy viewing from depths of despair

Branagh's Wallander is a dour presence in Sweden's golden fields. Photo / Supplied

I cheered when someone shot Kurt Wallander's cellphone on Monday's episode of Wallander (UKTV, 8.30pm). Its trilling ring tone had driven me mad the week before, so every time it went off - about every five seconds, it seemed - I felt like shooting at the screen myself.

So good on the villain for blasting it - although he was actually trying to shoot Wallander, the dour Swedish detective whose capacity for existential despair is magnified by his vocation in a small country with an abnormal number of sadists, child abusers, serial killers, alcoholics and wife beaters. No wonder it seems so familar. Sweden looks lovely in Wallander, with golden fields of crops, blue skies and majestic mansions in the countryside.

On the other hand, Wallander, played by Kenneth Branagh with Hamlet-esque angst, lives in an apartment that appears to be decorated almost entirely in dark wood. Immersed in all that darkness, he sips booze and broods over his wife's understandable demands for a divorce.

At 90 minutes an episode, the leisurely pace in these BBC adaptations of the thrillers by Henning Mankell takes some getting used to. In fact, one of my workmates complained that the first episode - about an underage sex ring run by rich old pervs, who were getting axed in the head one by one - was too slow. Initially I thought that was because his brain had shrunk after years of watching so much formulaic fare on the mainstream channels.

Then I watched it again, and decided it did need some trimming, especially the scenes featuring Wallander and his dementia-bound dad (David Warner) not talking to each other.

But it's still an engaging series.

This week, poor Wallander almost brightened up when his daughter pushed him into internet dating a woman called Ella who actually seemed to like him, a development he could scarcely believe.

Later on, when he was staggering around a mist-filled forest looking for the bad guy, he heard a voice whisper, "I need you to ring him."

Next thing, his phone rang - Ella calling, which gave away his location. Bang bang - goodbye phone and poor lovelorn Wallander. She'd been using him, a player in a mad, body-ridden plot to bring down Europe's financial system.

Once upon a time, you'd catch a series like Wallander on, say, TV One. Ditto Russia: A Journey with Jonathan Dimbleby (Prime, Fridays). Dimbleby is a terrific host, who takes you into dark corners of a country many of us will never visit, except via the telly. Last week, the usually amiable Dimbleby argued with a woman devoted to Stalin. He was appalled and told her so in no uncertain terms.

Then, aided by a few shots of vodka, he went on to play 10-pin bowls in a leisure centre he later found out was run by the mafia.

It turns out Dimbleby was suffering terrible depression during the making of the series, after his lover died of cancer, which explains the occasional flashes of sadness across his face. He and Wallander are both in the right settings for despair, which perversely benefits the viewer.