Van Der Valk’s back for series 3

One or two eyebrows were raised when Marc Warren (Hustle, The Good Wife) landed the role of cynical Dutch Detective Commissaris Piet Van der Valk back in 2020 – previously played from 1972-1977, then again in the early 1990s, by Barry Foster.

At that point, Warren was known for playing almost exclusively slick, slippery individuals, usually crooks, rogues and villains. That he would turn lawman for this series felt like a poacher-turned-gamekeeper kind of situation.

Happily, the dynamic worked, helped by the fact that the show was more of a loose reimagining of the original series – it took more reference from the source novels, by Nicolas Freeling, than it did the 1970s iteration, which Freeling adapted himself to better suit a television audience of the time.

Obviously, it has been updated, and the plot devices are new – series two’s opening episode featured a killer live-streaming a suicide bombing attempt, for example – but the characterisation owes much to the nuanced protagonist portrayed through the inner monologue of Freeling’s books.

The third series begins as Van Der Valk and Lucienne (Maimie McCoy) welcome two new junior members to the team.

They arrive in the form of hot-headed marksman Eddie Suleman (newcomer Azan Ahmed) and no-nonsense tech genius Citra Li (Django Chan-Reeves, The End of the F***ing World).

Both rookies are given something of a baptism of fire when a charismatic and idealistic free-runner is murdered, and the investigation uncovers corruption and simmering resentments bubbling under the surface of this outwardly liberating sport.

But was the killer a rival, or someone who wanted to silence the athlete?

Pressing further, the team uncover evidence of drug dealing and with it a pretty huge potential motive.

Along the way, Van Der Valk is also thrown unexpectedly back into contact with his ex-girlfriend, Lena, giving the Commissaris even more reason to scowl.

Warren may have initially thought that portraying a member of the Dutch police was a step into the unknown, but all that changed when filming the last series – and he was pulled over by the real Dutch police.

He explains: “In the last episode, Maimie and I had to drive through Dam Square at its most packed in the Cherokee, both wearing bulletproof vests – I don’t think we had our guns on us, but we had the flashing lights on.

“Somebody had not told the local police that we were doing that, and we got pulled over! I suddenly thought ‘If we’ve got guns on us as well, we are going to be in a lot of trouble’. You just leave it to the assistant directors to deal with that…”

At least he and McCoy will have had that extra bit of authenticity brought from experience from which to draw for this series.

As well as Warren and McCoy, Emma Fielding also returns as Chief Commissaris Julia Dahlman, alongside Darrell D’Silva, who plays team pathologist Hendrik Davie.