THIS dark and compelling Danish TV series which garnered a cult audience in Britain has been remade by American TV.

You may think this is not a good move given how much American cop TV shows often rely on over-acting and dramatic shoot-outs usually leading to rapid solving of complex crimes (unlike real life).

But actually the US version of The Killing has maintained much of the atmospheric Nordic-nuanced drama while being subtly different.

The story centres around the murder of a teenage girl who is found drowned locked in the boot of an aspiring politician’s campaign vehicle.

Lots of suspects are in the frame, but what makes this drama different, and certainly made the Danish TV series eminently watchable, is the way the camera slowly concentrates on the grief of the parents, the shiftiness of the suspects and the two wildly differing characters of the police investigators.

The female detective goes against the American norm by not having big hair and pristine make-up, and in fact, like her Danish counterpart, goes largely unmade up and wears big baggy sweaters (more like real life).

The murder happens just as she was about to leave the force to join her fiance in another city (that’s the sub-plot), but she ends up staying on to try to solve the case, and is paired with a young brash cop who, frankly, is badly miscast in my opinion. But that’s the only jarring note about this show so far.

This was the first scene-setting episode and the writers and actors successfully built the tension until the body is discovered — but who did it? A slow burner and one to watch.