"The Bridge" - Season 4 on BBC2

[amateur51]

Ams - you could become his facebook friend: http://www.facebook.com/emilbirk

How utterly marvy

[vinteuil]

... slightly off-topic, but I did like the TV review in The Independent this morming:

"The French give us Spiral ; the Italians give us Inspector Montalbano and the Scandinavians give us The Killing, Those Who Kill and The Bridge. So what do we give them? Lewis (ITV1), which has returned for yet another mini-series. To be fair, it's still quite watchable and it's a cut above Midsomer Murders, but it is still unbelievably twee and cosy. I couldn't help thinking that if Lewis is ever shown in Denmark, the Danes will be wondering what decade it was made in. Personally, I could have done with a return to the 70s. That way John Thaw could come back, not as Morse but as Jack Regan from The Sweeney, and shake the place up by kicking over a few pub tables.
This was Lewis as Morse ever was. Sunshine, Oxford colleges, undergraduates who seemed to have walked straight out of Made in Chelsea, and murders that have all the shock value of a slight graze. The plot was also all too familiar, a complicated and unlikely story about a group of seemingly unconnected people who had all been at Oxford together sometime in the past. Christ, if I'd wanted to watch that, I'd have just gone into the office."

[Nick Armstrong]

... slightly off-topic, but I did like the TV review in The Independent this morming:

"The French give us Spiral ; the Italians give us Inspector Montalbano and the Scandinavians give us The Killing, Those Who Kill and The Bridge. So what do we give them? Lewis (ITV1), which has returned for yet another mini-series. To be fair, it's still quite watchable and it's a cut above Midsomer Murders, but it is still unbelievably twee and cosy. I couldn't help thinking that if Lewis is ever shown in Denmark, the Danes will be wondering what decade it was made in. Personally, I could have done with a return to the 70s. That way John Thaw could come back, not as Morse but as Jack Regan from The Sweeney, and shake the place up by kicking over a few pub tables.
This was Lewis as Morse ever was. Sunshine, Oxford colleges, undergraduates who seemed to have walked straight out of Made in Chelsea, and murders that have all the shock value of a slight graze. The plot was also all too familiar, a complicated and unlikely story about a group of seemingly unconnected people who had all been at Oxford together sometime in the past. Christ, if I'd wanted to watch that, I'd have just gone into the office."

One hopes that the return to the 70s - or earlier - with 'Endeavour', the 'Morse' "prequel" () being recommissioned, will deliver some of that, with Roger Allam getting a bit heavy-handed with the odd villain...

[aeolium]

They could always send the Danes a copy of Red Riding, the TV adaptation of David Peace's crime stories. That was about as far from the milieu and atmosphere of Morse, Lewis and Midsomer as it was possible to get. Not up to the level of the Scandinavian series though.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

very good point there aeolium ..... an excellent set of films ....


[have been watching on the C4 player the adaptation of Any Human Heart by William Boyd - great performance by Jim Broadbent and others ..... very good but not in the class of The Bridge or The Wire]

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Lewis[/I] (ITV1) ... it's still quite watchable and it's a cut above Midsomer Murders, but it is still unbelievably twee and cosy. I couldn't help thinking that if Lewis is ever shown in Denmark, the Danes will be wondering what decade it was made in.

Yes; but can't the same be said of Inspector Montalbano? I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Italian series (as I do Lewis), but to put it in the same category as the French & Nordic series seems to be stretching a point. (Vera is good, too.)

But Red Riding: oh yes!

[aeolium]

I have long thought that the commissioners of crime series here have missed a trick in not mining the rich tradition of police incompetence, fraud, deliberate falsification and corruption - for instance in the notorious West Midlands Serious Crime Squad in the 1970s, the bungled IRA terrorism prosecutions in the 1970s and 1980s, the institutionalised racism in the Met passim. There are stories here where fact is frequently much stranger and more disturbing than dramatic fiction. Red Riding was one series where there was such a focus, and to a lesser extent the earlier Law and Order series, but generally few have dared to tackle these issues, most preferring the reassuring cosiness of the honest detective(s) bringing cases to a successful resolution.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

perhaps we were ahead of the game there with the thief's tale etc in the law and order set of dramas?

actually Spooks was on the ball with the issue agenda just lacking in the dramatic exposition and writing areas

[LHC]

... slightly off-topic, but I did like the TV review in The Independent this morming:

"The French give us Spiral ; the Italians give us Inspector Montalbano and the Scandinavians give us The Killing, Those Who Kill and The Bridge. So what do we give them? Lewis (ITV1), which has returned for yet another mini-series. To be fair, it's still quite watchable and it's a cut above Midsomer Murders, but it is still unbelievably twee and cosy. I couldn't help thinking that if Lewis is ever shown in Denmark, the Danes will be wondering what decade it was made in. Personally, I could have done with a return to the 70s. That way John Thaw could come back, not as Morse but as Jack Regan from The Sweeney, and shake the place up by kicking over a few pub tables.
This was Lewis as Morse ever was. Sunshine, Oxford colleges, undergraduates who seemed to have walked straight out of Made in Chelsea, and murders that have all the shock value of a slight graze. The plot was also all too familiar, a complicated and unlikely story about a group of seemingly unconnected people who had all been at Oxford together sometime in the past. Christ, if I'd wanted to watch that, I'd have just gone into the office."

Actually, John Crace's review appeared in Guardian rather than the Indie, which makes his joke about the office being full of Oxford alumni even better.

Despite its socialist leanings, the Guardian is just as dominated by public school and Oxbridge old boys as the BBC and all the political parties. As Michael Gove noted earlier this month:

"It’s in the media that the public school stranglehold is strongest .... the editor of the Guardian is an Old Cranleighan. Indeed the Guardian has been edited by privately educated men for the last sixty years… But then many of our most prominent contemporary radical and activist writers are also privately educated. George Monbiot of the Guardian was at Stowe, Seumas Milne of the Guardian was at Winchester and perhaps the most radical new voice of all Laurie Penny of the Independent – was educated here at Brighton College."

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

yes that is a great attraction of Scandinavian tv drama there is a marked scarcity of public school oxbridge types ....

[LHC]

They could always send the Danes a copy of Red Riding, the TV adaptation of David Peace's crime stories. That was about as far from the milieu and atmosphere of Morse, Lewis and Midsomer as it was possible to get. Not up to the level of the Scandinavian series though.

Another vote from me for Red Riding. A superb series and one of the best things Channel 4 have produced in years. The first film was especially impressive.

[Dave2002]

And it's just occurred to me that maybe the 'hollow girl' is Saga... Or is Jens's elaborate 'social conscience' just 'hollow talk'...?

For helvede!

Someone who has recorded the Bridge for future watching asked me yesterday if it was really worth watching. In the end I said yes on the grounds that Saga was really an interesting character - although I'd suggest clearly OTT. I did warn that I thought there were some problems with the plot later on, but Saga made it worth watching. I've not seen anything like that before. Like Lund she is obsessive, but with even less ability to interact "normally", though one could question how she ever got into her position. At least she didn't do what Lund always seemed to do, which for me was farcically stupid, which was to go into dark places with no or little backup on a whim, and even based on interpretations of "facts" which were several years old. Even if one does have a beakthrough, without extreme urgency, why put oneself in danger? Makes for entertaining TV though. Since I watched Killing II before Killing I I didn't appreciate this "joke" aspect of Lund's character for a while, so the opening of Killing II made more sense later on.

[DracoM]

Most detectives in the fictional world are / were obsessives, were they not? Holmes? Morse? Tennyson, Jordan/Hill, Wallander? van Veeteren?

[Norfolk Born]

IMHO the best way to watch these 'Nordic Noir' offerings is to go with the flow, hoping and trusting that all will become clear(ish) by the end, and in the meantime enjoy the acting, the skilful editing, the stunning scenery, the personal quirks of the characters and whatever else comes along. As for persistent and foolhardy examinations of dark underground rooms by ill-prepared, under-equipped officers of the law... well (1) they surely reflect the character concerned, and (2) it's a perfect example of the principle that, thankfully, whatever's about to happen is going to happen to them, not us. This is a venerable and perfectly legitimate device for a screenwriter to use, and it certainly doesn't detract from my enjoyment of any of these series.
Has anybody else commented yet on the welcome, virtually complete, absence of background music? More proof of the producers' confidence in their products, extending as it does to include the viewer's ability to react as he or she sees fit without constant 'prompts' from the Mad Pianist or Massed Throbbing Strings.

[Nick Armstrong]

IMHO the best way to watch these 'Nordic Noir' offerings is to go with the flow, hoping and trusting that all will become clear(ish) by the end, and in the meantime enjoy the acting, the skilful editing, the stunning scenery, the personal quirks of the characters and whatever else comes along. As for persistent and foolhardy examinations of dark underground rooms by ill-prepared, under-equipped officers of the law... well (1) they surely reflect the character concerned, and (2) it's a perfect example of the principle that, thankfully, whatever's about to happen is going to happen to them, not us. This is a venerable and perfectly legitimate device for a screenwriter to use, and it certainly doesn't detract from my enjoyment of any of these series.
Has anybody else commented yet on the welcome, virtually complete, absence of background music? More proof of the producers' confidence in their products, extending as it does to include the viewer's ability to react as he or she sees fit without constant 'prompts' from the Mad Pianist or Massed Throbbing Strings.

Not for the first time, my Lord Norfolk, we are perfectly ad idem and you put it better than I could!