'The Crime') is a Danish police procedural drama television series created by Søren Sveistrup and produced by DR in co-production with ZDF Enterprises.

The series is noted for its plot twists, season-long storylines and dark tone, and for giving equal emphasis to the stories of the murdered victim's family and the effect in political circles alongside the police investigation.

Søren Sveistrup, series creator and head writer, worked closely with lead actress Sofie Gråbøl throughout the writing process to develop the character of Detective Inspector Sarah Lund.

Gråbøl had a history of playing emotionally demonstrative characters on Danish television—she had worked with Sveistrup before on the TV-series Nikolaj og Julie.

[1][2] Despite her insistence that she play an "isolated person [who is] unable to communicate," Gråbøl initially found it difficult to strike the right balance for the emotionally-distant Lund.

[3] During filming of the first series, Sveistrup would not reveal major plot points or the identity of the murderer to members of the cast, including Gråbøl.

Meanwhile, Thomas Buch, the newly appointed Minister of Justice, suspects that his predecessor was involved in the cover-up of a massacre of Afghan civilians by Danish soldiers and that this incident is connected with the murder.

[18] Lund is about to be discharged from the case when a second killing, that of a Danish military veteran, leads to fears that Islamic extremists are involved.

Jens Peter Raben, a sectioned war veteran, knew both victims and tells his story of the execution of an Afghan family by a special forces officer named "Perk".

Buch and his secretarial team uncover further evidence of the cover-up, but the cabinet pressures him to continue pinning the murders on Muslims in order to assure the passage of an anti-terrorism bill.

Raben takes refuge in a church presided over by a former army chaplain, who tries to convince him to give himself up and stop investigating the killings.

An injured Raben persists in accusing Perk of being the officer responsible for the massacre, yet it is later officially confirmed that he had left Afghanistan before the killings.

Following a further search of a military barracks, suspicion falls on Captain Bilal, an anti-Taliban Muslim who kidnaps Raben's wife Louise.

In the wake of the successful Wallander series, The Killing became another Scandinavian crime hit with British viewers when it was shown on BBC Four in the spring of 2011.

[29] The success created an interest in all things Danish,[30] and the female detective's Faroese jumper was the subject of newspaper articles as well as becoming a sought after online item.

As well as the UK, DR also sold the series to a number of other broadcasters worldwide, and The Killing was eventually shown in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Japan, Russia, Spain and the US with varying degrees of success.

[44] Following both its critical and ratings success in the United Kingdom, the BBC began importing and broadcasting more subtitled programmes from a number of different countries.

[45] In late 2011 digital channel Sky Arts also broadcast the Italian series Romanzo Criminale, while FX bought the rights to popular French cop show Braquo.

[46] Although BBC Four had shown subtitled dramas before, notably the Swedish version of Wallander and French police procedural Spiral, controller of the channel Richard Klein described The Killing as "a game-changer".