Season 1
Backstrom is an American comedy-drama police procedural television series developed by Hart Hanson based on the Swedish book series by Leif G. W. Persson, which revolves around Everett Backstrom, an overweight, offensive, irascible Portland Police Bureau detective lieutenant who is engaged in a constant struggle with his self-destructive tendencies.
Tasked with navigating the city's most sensitive and serious cases, he must solve each crime as he tries, and fails, to change his own self-destructive behaviour.
In the pilot episode, after the apparent suicide of a Senator's son is ruled a homicide, the Portland Police Bureau's Serious Crime Unit, led by Detective Backstrom (Rainn Wilson) must solve the case.
Following the team's arrival on the scene, forensics expert Sergeant Peter Niedermayer (Kristoffer Polaha, Ringer, Life Unexpected) verifies that the death was indeed a homicide.
This starts the trail for Backstrom and his team: Detective Nicole Gravely (Genevieve Angelson, House of Lies)), Detective Sergeant John Almond (Dennis Haysbert, The Unit, 24), uniformed officer Frank Moto (Page Kennedy, Weeds, S.W.A.T.) and the tech-savvy Nadia Paquet (Beatrice Rosen, The Dark Knight, Cuts).
Together, they must follow leads, while trying to maintain a low profile in this highly scrutinized case.
Persson's book series Backstrom is popular in Scandinavia, where his work has sold more than six million copies. The character has appeared in two novels so far, Linda and He Who Kills The Dragon.
Backstrom is produced by 20th Century Fox Television. The series is created, written and executive-produced by Hart Hanson. Leif G.W. Persson and Niclas Salomonsson serve as executive producers. Rainn Wilson and Josh Levy serve as producers.
Mark Mylod directed and served as an executive producer on the pilot.