The Investigation

“The Investigation” is no ordinary show. ... That “The Investigation” moves so methodically through its story is a sign of respect for subjects and viewers alike — it’s a show that understands the gravity of its own story. Its intense unity of vision makes “The Investigation” the first great scripted series of 2021. A healthy share of “The Investigation’s” success is owed to its cast.

Writer and director Tobias Lindholm resists portraying the murder and its perpetrator as masterful and instead turns the lens on the grinding policework and overwhelming sense of familial loss left in Wall's wake. This makes "The Investigation" feel laborious in its pacing at times, deliberately so, rendering it authentically poignant in a way that's unique for crime dramas.

Through Lindholm’s telling, the story of Kim Wall becomes less remote; she is not merely a victim but the reason the story matters at all. ... The Investigation doesn’t soften or tame any of the details. But Lindholm’s approach, in focusing on all of the people and all of the effort that had to go into the case, brings things back down to earth—and marks a next step in the evolution of the true crime genre.

We grant you that the first couple of episodes of The Investigation will be frustrating to watch, given what you know about the Wall case. But seeing these cops and prosecutors make their way through Madsen’s lies to get to the truth will be interesting to watch.

Mr. Malling is an unconventional star, and Jens an unconventional hero. ... [Kim’s parents, Joachim and Ingrid] provide some naked, much needed humanity, because the principals are so often trying to suppress their own.

Plodding and mournful, the dirge-like series takes as its primary subject not even Jens, but the laboriousness of the inquiry into Wall’s killing. ... Even with an extensive epilogue dedicated to Wall and her parents’ endeavors to remember their late daughter by funding the work of female journalists, the show can’t help feeling like it’s also sidelining the real-life woman without whose death it would have never existed.

In telling the story so faithfully, it became mired in minutiae, lacking pace and power. We ended up with something authentic, certainly, but as dull as its generic title.