Viewers forced to make do with the US version ofThe Killingcan breathe a sigh of relief. The original Danish version - the ONLY version according to purists - is back on our screens on Saturday evening, kicking off with a triumphant double bill.
The first season, made in 2007 and shown on BBC4 earlier this year, uncurled over 20 luxurious episodes, shot against the harshly beautiful Danish landscape. It followed the investigation, day by day, of the murder of a teenage girl. Season II picks up after the inquiry into this investigation, with unsmiling heroine Sarah Lund out-posted in disgrace, until her singularly intuitive detection skills are called upon once again.
To mark the return of this happy television event, we list just some of the reasons why there's no better way to spend Saturday night than curling up with The Killing - here are our highlights from the first series:
The ruthless crime being discovered in all its horror, against the bleak, unforgiving beauty of the Danish fields
Detective Sarah Lund packing up her Copenhagen office and continuing to make plans to move to Stockholm the very next day where her partner Bengt and son Mark are already waiting. Hearing her having long-distance telephone conversations about what wood they should use to build the sauna, while we know full well she is never going to be anywhere near that Swedish hot-tub while the case is continuing
Lund’s boss equally safe in the knowledge that Lund isn’t going anywhere, despite her protestations
The slow, confident unfolding of a single plot over 20 hours. No CSI one-hour crime-to-conviction resolutions here
The English subtitles keeping no correlation with the Danish tongues. Sometimes we see three words and hear thirty, sometimes vice versa
The splattering of unintelligible Danish, all sounding very intelligent, punctuated by the odd international lingo of "stop", "text message" and, bizarrely, "pawn shop" to keep us on our toes
Sarah Lund's gloriously un-coquettish, accidentally feminine portrayal by Sofie Grabol, with her unblinking search for justice, despite being bloodied, bruised and mentally scarred continually over the 20 episodes
The Slavic-cheekboned Troels Hartmann, played by Lars Mikkelsen, the smoothly, ambitious politician with his ruthless trench-coat and palpable personal demons
Sarah Lund's implacability in facing down a huge, deep-pocketed political machine
The initially warm, passionate, physically joyous relationship between the victim Nanna Birk Larsen's parents, and the depiction of a small, but happy family life, until it's wrecked
Their quiet, dignified grief in the face of their daughter's murder, and the resulting changes in the family dynamics, a study which could warrant a whole series of its own
How bereaved father Theis's workmates silently show their support and solidarity in his terrible hour
The gradual thawing of Lund and her sidekick Meyer's professional relationship, from blatant civilised hostility, to open war being waged in the opening episodes to mutual respect and protectiveness, with a shared drive to unmask and bring to justice the malefactor
Meyer's outrage in the face of what he sees as a conspiracy of silence and unhelpfulness at every turn, particularly when dealing with smug, self-interested politicians more worried about election press than the murder of a teenager
The Killing II is on Saturday 9pm and 10pm, BBC4. Here are some images from the show in our Slideshow below: