​The term “Scandi Noir” has become so embedded in TV terminology that it’s nowadays near impossible to find a crime drama without chill-clenched cinematography, an esoteric electronic score and a fog-flooded landscape providing the backdrop for the grisliest murders imaginable.
 
It’s undisputed that Scandinavia have revolutionised the TV crime genre ; their shows trading mundane murder-of the-week filler for commitment to cases occupying entire seasons. Meanwhile these murders - once mildly mid-week sensationalist telly trash - are given a heartfelt treatment as they document the consequences such crimes cause their communities.
 
The Scandi smorgasbord has spread far further than our Norse neighbours too. If it weren’t for the widespread success of Sweden’s ‘Wallander’ (2009-2014) and Denmark’s ‘The Killing’ (‘Forbrydelsen’) (2011-2012) on our shores, it’s likely they’d be no ‘Broadchurch’ (2013-2017), no ‘Happy Valley’ (2014-) and no ‘The Missing’ (2014-2016). Three of TV’s best Brit dramas of the decade.
 
The cream of the crop in the Nordic Noir cannon, however, is a crossing point between Sweden and Denmark by name of ‘The Bridge’ (‘Bron-Broen’).
 
A co-production between the two countries which first aired over here on BBC4 back in 2012, it takes its title from the Oresund Bridge - Scandinavia’s equivalent of the Channel Tunnel (is it a wonder that the Brits and the French remade it in vastly inferior form called ‘The Tunnel’ (2013)) - which connects the Southern Swedish city of Malmo with the Danish capital Copenhagen.
 
It is here that a mutilated corpse is chopped in half and straddled between the border; causing a police jurisdiction debate over whose case this belongs and inevitably introducing us to the 21st Century’s greatest detective duo.
 
On the Malmo side is the Sherlockian Swede sleuth Saga Noren (Sofia Hellin). She’s cold and clinical while blonde, dons leather trousers and drives a Volvo; much like your stereotypical Swede in the eyes of their Danish rivals.
 
Continuing Nordic TV’s knack for Bechdel-beating heroines, she’s also one of the most fascinating female characters ever created. Much like ‘The Killing’s Sarah Lund, Saga has a beautiful, but rugged edge yet plays rigidly by the rules to the point of compulsion while suffering from serious interpersonal issues shrouded in Asperger’s Syndrome. A condition which has never been portrayed better than the brilliantly blunt realism of Sofia Hellin’s masterstroke of a performance.
 
Her Dane detective partner is a burly bear copper called Martin Rohde (Kim Bodnia). A name harder to pronounce than it is to write! He’s jolly and jovial - an embodiment of Sweden’s impression of Denmark’s laid-back culture - with a love of drink and an easy-going, care-free attitude to crime. Perhaps too care-free as he sleep around and struggles with your average detective dose of marital and family problems. Specifically - in most heartbreaking fashion - with his anguished son August.
 
Each of the show’s three 10-episode seasons have worn the masquerades of conventional “whodunnits” with their lead detectives spending the course of each entire run investigating a spree of macabre murders carried out by criminals appearing to have taken a leaf out of ‘Luther’s book of ludicrous psychos . And yet there’s a poetic political underbelly to their madness that provides harrowingly thought-provoking commentary on the state of Scandinavian society; the crimes manifesting themselves as extremist right-wing responses to the sub-continent’s much-famed liberalism.
 
In the first run, we had a ​‘Se7en’-style serial killer determined to uncover 10 ugly truths about society. The second season took things to grander and more spectacularly preposterous levels involving an eco-terrorist attempting to vanquish theories of climate change by unleashing a lethal airborne virus; followed by a mildly more grounded third season with a homophobic, anti-LGBT killer who dissects body parts from his victims before piecing their remains together as clown-like mannequins. Lovely!
 
These cases are not core of the tale, though. It’s victims and their families are every bit equally integral pieces to the ongoing narrative. Whereas the likes of ‘CSI’ and ‘Law and Order’ would simply dump a suspect into an interrogation room until evidence briskly proved otherwise, ‘The Bridge’ offers insight into their psyche and backgrounds quite like no other. The identity of each season’s killer may be withheld, but it is of least importance as opposed to crafting characters we grow to care for as though they were our real-life companions.
 
Like the best “Scandi Noirs”, ‘The Bridge’ is a beautifully bleak experience; existentially encapsulated by its spectacularly sinister title sequence. The gorgeously grim theme song - ‘Hollow Talk’ by ‘Choir for Young Believers’ (a song I’ve repeated on my Spotify playlist more times than comprehensible!) - tugs and tenses the heart strings against the ominous, cinematic imagery of its titular border crossing.
 
Most of all, however, the series has a sense of location and place unparalleled on TV today. It’s what drives Saga and Martin’s breathtakingly believable chemistry and elevates it from a routine round of hot and cold cop. This is a tale of two cultures; drastically different and often at each other’s throats, but in need of one another if they are to survive the darkness of the outdoors.
 
A fourth and final season begins next week. Pardoning the pun, when this Saga ends, it will be a Saga sorely missed...