Autumn’s here. The darkness is approaching. Nights are getting longer. Surely it’s time for something scary but high quality? And another TMINE German TV competition?
You’re right. It is. Because I’ve got two copies of top Bron/Broen remake Der Pass (Pagan Peak) up for grabs.
Krampus in Der Pass
Der Pass (Pagan Peak)
Season one of Der Pass (Pagan Peak) was last week’s Boxset Tuesday – spoiler alert: I loved it – so I’m quite delighted to be able to give it away on DVD, since I suspect not as many people would have seen it as would have liked to have seen it, given it aired here on Sky Atlantic.
Here’s the blurb, to explain it:
TV phenomenon The Bridge has inspired numerous remakes across the globe and heralded a new dawn of television. Now from the award-winning makers of hit drama The Dark comes a thrilling new German-Austrian spin that takes the initial premise to the brand-new gripping heights of Der Pass.
This Sky Original garnered exceptional viewing figures when it premiered in Germany, earning critical acclaim and now it’s set to take the UK by storm as it arrives on DVD and digital from Acorn Media International following its premiere on Sky Atlantic this summer.
When a gruesomely staged, dead body is found in a mountain pass in the Alps near the German-Austrian border, two detectives from either side are brought in to investigate.
Not only are they from two different countries, they are worlds apart in their careers… German detective Ellie (Julia Jentsch) embraces the case as the first real challenge of her profession, while her Austrian counterpart Gedeon (Nicholas Ofczarek) is jaded and seems to have lost any ambition.
They soon discover more crime scenes with symbolically posed victims, which appear reminiscent of pagan rituals. Are they all part of a much bigger, sinister plan?
Ellie puts herself under increasing pressure to try and understand the deranged murderer’s motives so she can stop them killing again, and as the hunt goes on the detectives are drawn deeper into the dark valleys and archaic Alpine customs – and the paranoid world of the killer.
Set against a majestic backdrop, the eight-part series is produced by the Academy Award-winning Max Wiedemann and Quirin Berg (The Lives of Others) and won the award for Best TV series at Austria’s ROMY TV Awards. It arrives on DVD and digital on 23 September 2019.
Make the darkly enthralling Der Pass your new favourite ritual.
You all watch Line of Duty, don’t you? What do you watch it for? Is it the soapy relationship issues? Is it the arcane, interwoven plots, more padded with red herrings than a Hull Little Chef circa 1976? Is it its totally plausible view of police corruption investigations or equally great insight into how real criminals operate?
Of course not. It’s the interrogation scenes, when the brave officers investigating the corrupt coppers confront them with acres of incriminating evidence, resulting in a confession or at the very least said coppers tripping over a lie and incriminating themselves. They’re tense, marvellous studies of human interaction and how you can use mere words to get someone to do something they absolutely do not want to do.
Kudos then to Netflix for realising this and creating a show that’s entirely Line of Duty interrogation scenes: Criminal.
And if that were the limit of the format’s inventiveness, there wouldn’t be much to talk about. But Criminal is also Netflix’s new ‘gateway drug’.
The streaming service is arguably the world’s only truly international TV network, both acquiring and more importantly commissioning TV shows from around the world and then showing them in other countries.
Fancy watching Brazilian TV tonight? Then not only has Netflix got some of Brazil’s existing TV for you to watch, it’s also making entirely new shows for you in Brazil that you can watch.
That’s its USP and one that Amazon et al haven’t yet really started to emulate.
Criminal: Germany
Euro cop
The question is: how to make someone in the UK, say, want to watch Brazilian TV? Sure, there’s always a few internationally minded people willing to experience other country’s TV – I imagine they’re all TMINE readers, too – but that’s a minority interest.
So how do you get everyone else to at least try those bucket-loads of foreign TV you’ve got? Getting them started is the hardest part, but if you can do it they might end up staying on your service to watch more…
Do you do a co-production and film in loads of different countries? Maybe, but that’ll cost a load of cash.
So a final kudos to Netflix for turning in probably its most international while simultaneously cheapest ever TV show, despite being set in four different countries.
