James Delingpole James Delingpole

Norway’s noir

Also, the trajectory of the story is never obvious, as in the latest new Scandi noir on Channel 4’s Walter Presents, Valkyrien

issue 19 August 2017

Valkyrien (C4, Sunday) is the hot new Scandi-noir series, which is being billed as Norway’s answer to Breaking Bad. In this case, the anti-hero having his mid-life crisis is a brilliant surgeon called Ravn (Sven Nordin). He has become disenchanted with The System because the fancy hospital where he works won’t let him use the potentially life-saving treatment he has devised on his dying wife. (It might kill her, they say — which Ravn, quite understandably, considers a ridiculous, faux-ethical excuse.) So off he goes to sulk in his Batcave — a disused nuclear bomb shelter, accessible via an underground station — for what will no doubt be a series of clandestine medical adventures, using equipment he has nicked from his old lab.

Ravn’s Jesse-style sidekick Leif (Pal Sverre Hagen) works for Norway’s civil defence unit — risk-assessing all the things that might bring the world to an end. It’s the perfect job because he’s really a ‘prepper’ — or ‘doomsday nerd’ as this series calls them: one of those people who thinks the apocalypse is nigh and that only the select few with the tinned food, the guns, and the knowledge of where all the bunkers are are going to make it through.

But how are our mismatched duo going to fund all their strange capers over the next seven episodes? Well, as luck would have it, a wounded acquaintance of Leif’s has turned up with a bullet in his kidney as a result of a semi-botched bank raid.

Comments

Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.

Already a subscriber? Log in