Van Der Valk returns to ITV tonight at 8pm, with the fourth season of the detective drama promising to be the most explosive yet.
Starring Marc Warren as Piet van der Valk, the series is based on the original show that ran from 1972 to 1992 and premiered on ITV in 2020. The new season follows the third, which aired in 2023, as Piet returns to tackle fresh homicide cases after a three-year break.
Cast and Setting
Maimie McCoy reprises her role as Inspecteur Lucienne Hassell, with Azan Ahmed as Sergeant Eddie Suleman, Darrell D'Silva as team pathologist Hendrik Davie, and Emma Fielding as Chief Commissaris Julia Dahlman.
The series, adapted from Nicolas Freeling's crime thriller novels, is filmed and based in Amsterdam.
What to Expect
Writer Chris Murray said: “We are 100% series that this is the best series of Van Der Valk we’ve done so far. Three strong, contrasting, resolving films flooded with our distinctive team dynamic but this time with the added spice of Piet’s combative ex-girlfriend turning up at the same time as one of our team has to confront their own mortality.”
ITV teased that the new episodes see the Dutch detective and his team solving three more homicides in the city. In the first episode, the death of a whistleblower under police protection before a court hearing brings Van Der Valk and his team in to ensure the second witness makes it to court. The situation is complicated by the protection officer in charge of the first victim, Kalie Tenkers, a former flame of Piet's.
“Fair to say there is no love lost between the two, especially when he suggests she might have been involved in the killing…”
'It Felt Like a Bigger Show'
Marc Warren said the new episodes felt bigger, telling viewers: “What it felt like, and I felt it really strongly in episode one, it felt like a bigger show. It seemed like we had more crew and there was more going on. In episode one particularly it was quite an intricate show, lots of cars and explosions and stunts, and it felt like the whole show had gone up a level. It’s a very impressive episode.”
He added: “Episode one was about a crime family and one of those members of that crime family being a whistle-blower. It’s about a big explosion, about trying to protect somebody, witness protection. And it also sees Van Der Valk being reintroduced to an old flame. I was there when they filmed the explosion and saw it with my own eyes. It was a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be, and they made sure that we were all quite a long way back.”
Van Der Valk airs on ITV on Sunday at 8pm.
