hen it comes to imported dramas on BBC4, viewers have grown used to scanning the

translation at the bottom of the screen. But for the channel's latest Scandinavian treat,
Nordic viewers also had to watch via subtitles.

The Bridge, BBC4's new Saturday-night crime drama, which starts on Saturday, features
a pair of Swedish and Danish detectives – sadly Lund and Wallander were otherwise
engaged – investigating the discovery of a woman's body exactly halfway across the
Oresund bridge, which links their countries.

With half the dialogue in Swedish, and half in Danish, the show was subtitled when
broadcast in Scandinavia – and BBC4 viewers convinced that they've got their ear in
after being glued to first Wallander, then The Killing and, most recently, Borgen, will be
able to put their theory to the test.

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They might also spot some similarities between the socially awkward female Swedish
police officer Saga Norén and a certain jumper-wearing Copenhagen detective –
although BBC4's controller, Richard Klein, said viewers should not get stuck on such
comparisons.

"There's also a lot of similarities between Taggart and Rebus – that's the nature of
crime," he said. "One of the central aspects of detective story telling is the slightly
outside element of the detective who sees the world in a different way."

Norén is partnered by the laid-back Danish cop Martin Rohde, on the trail of a killer
who believes his actions are defensible for social reasons.

"Even though Denmark and Sweden are close, we're quite different and also we have
different ways of working," said The Bridge's Swedish co-producer Anders Landstrom,
who sees European co-productions as a pragmatic solution to securing funding for high-
quality, original television – despite occasional difficulties with language and working
practices.

"What's always happened with this in the past, is that very often people start with the
financial perspective, and then the idea isn't very good," Landstrom said. "Here we
started with an idea and thought it was very strong, so went from there."

For BBC4, the popularity of The Killing, which grew into a hit for the channel when the
first series was shown early last year came as something of a surprise. The Duchess of
Cornwall is such a fan that Sofie Gråbøl, who stars as Sarah Lund, presented her with
one of those  jumpers when she visited the set last month.