News and reviews of Nordic TV
Nordic TV
Nordic TV
What did you watch last week? Including Robot Chicken, Lilyhammer and Homeland
It’s “What did you watch last week?”, my chance to tell you what I movies and TV I watched last week that I haven’t already reviewed and your chance to recommend things to everyone else (and me) in case I’ve missed them.
First, the usual recommendations: Perception and Doctor Who. I’m adding The Thick Of It to the list, which I negligently forgot to mention last week, despite its being brilliantly funny and making Veep look like luke warm cup-a-soup in comparison. The new coalition characters are excellent as well.
So here’s a few thoughts on what I have been watching:
- Perception: Fabulous episode that took the precepts of the show to their logical conclusion. You’ll spot exactly where the episode is going about 10 minutes in, but knowing actually makes it more painful and heart-breaking to watch. Worth watching a few episodes before, if you haven’t already watched any, so that it’ll have the maximum impact.
- Hunderby: Not quite funny enough to make me watch the whole of episode 2.
- Screenwriters – The BAFTA and BFI lectures: showing on Sky Arts, a series of half-hour interviews/lectures by famous screenwriters. A bit variable, but with some great names (William Nicholson, Moira Buffini, Charlie Kaufman), with John Logan (Gladiator, Coriolanus, et al) being a great way to finish the series.
- Go On – episode two was actually okay, a bit more Community-ish, although less ensemble than that show. Still an odd combination of the tragic and comedic, but it’s now starting to pick up, I’d say.
- Robot Chicken – The DC Comics special, this was actually really funny. Not as funny as it could have been, but if you know your DC Comics, it had a lot going for it, particularly the relentless kicking of Aquaman.
- Lilyhammer – a BBC4/Netflix piece about a New York gangster relocating to Lilyhammer in Norway as part of a witness relocation scheme. Baffling, rather than funny, it essentially has every joke in Norwegian, followed by a character saying “Oh, you don’t speak much Norwegian, do you?” then repeating the joke in English. It’s therefore at least 50% less funny than it needs to be, and I suspect most of the jokes work better in Norwegian. And Norway. I switched off after about half an hour. Fargo‘s a better bet, I reckon. Some people seemed to love it though – maybe they watched the second half.
- Homeland – the first 20 minutes of season two only, mind. After watching the original Israeli show Prisoners of War, it’s a little harder to watch the more escapist Homeland than it used to be, but this preview does a good job of re-establishing everything, showing how Carrie and Brodie’s lives have changed, and we even get to go to Beirut. If you’re worried that season two won’t be as good as season 1, your fears should be assuaged.
“What did you watch last week?” is your chance to recommend to friends and fellow blog readers the TV and films that they might be missing or should avoid – and for me to do mini-reviews of everything I’ve watched. Since we live in the fabulous world of Internet catch-up services like the iPlayer and Hulu, why not tell your fellow readers what you’ve seen so they can see the good stuff they might have missed?
Nordic TV
Mini-review: Sebastian Bergman (BBC4) 1×1
In the UK: Saturdays, 9pm, BBC4
Well, The Bridge has come and gone, so BBC4 has had to try to fill the hole in its schedule and our lives with a new Nordic crime drama. Since the whole craze in the UK started with Wallander – albeit the Kenneth Branagh and Krister Henriksson versions – it only seems appropriate to turn to another Wallander: Rolf Lassgård. Lassgård was the original Kurt Wallander in the Swedish series movie based on the Henning Mankell novels, and it’s the creators of those movies who have clubbed together to give him a new role: the eponymous Sebastian Bergman, a bitter, misogynistic, misanthropic psychological profiler who lost his family in the 2004 tsunami, something from which he hasn’t recovered.
Anyway, this two-part trial run for the character sees him returning to work after a long absence. To avoid spoilers, let’s talk after the jump. The best embedded video I can give you is this and it’s in Swedish (sorry) and is the authors discussing the book the series is based on, not the actual TV series. But there’s a much better English language trailer over here that actually features Rolf Lassgård.
Continue reading “Mini-review: Sebastian Bergman (BBC4) 1×1”
How much more Scandinavian content is there to remake?
So today’s news brings us not one but two Scandinavian crime remakes. First, we have the US’s Lifetime channel remaking Denmark’s Lulu and Leon, which sees a woman take over her husband’s criminal empire when he is put behind bars.
We also now have Sky Atlantic co-producing a remake [subscription required] with Kudos and France’s Canal+ of Sweden and Denmark’s The Bridge. Presumably it’s going to be The Chunnel/Le tunnel sous la Manche) and have exciting cultural clashes in both French and English between the reserved, rules-bound English detective and the more rules-free, salt of the earth French detective (Jean-Hugues Anglade from Canal+’s Braquo gets my vote).
There’s already quite a platter of English-language remakes of Scandinavian shows now, particularly in the US, what with The Killing already on its second season on AMC, Those Who Kill being remade by A&E, NBC remaking Borgen and so on.
Is there much left? Does anyone know? Any predictions on what the next remake will be, those who know?
Nordic TV
Review: The Bridge (Bron/Broen) 1×1-1×2
In the UK: Saturdays, 9pm, BBC4. Available on the iPlayer
In Sweden and Denmark: Aired last September on SVT1 and DR1. Second series commissioned for broadcast in 2013
It can’t have escaped your notice that the world is falling in love with Scandinavian darkness. As I’ve previously remarked, British TV certainly has, with BBC1 and BBC4 taking the lead with shows like Denmark’s The Killing, The Killing 2 and Borgen and Sweden’s Wallander (as well as the home-grown Kenneth Branagh version), and ITV3 making a stab at it with Denmark’s Den Som Dræber (Those Who Kill). But even the US has spotted the trend and as well as remaking Sweden’s Girl With The Dragon Tattoo movies, it’s adapted Denmark’s The Killing, now in its second season.
Do you know who else has noticed this trend? Scandinavians, that’s who. Spotting a golden opportunity to finally export a few shows rather than having to buy in 24 and Friends to fill the airwaves, Scandinavia is seizing it with both hands. Now Danish and Swedish TV have got together to create something that while entirely Scandinavian in character still has an eye on the worldwide market: The Bridge (aka Bron/Broen depending on whether you’re Swedish or Danish).
The story is seemingly simple: on the Øresun bridge between Copenhagen in Denmark (ooh, where The Killing is set!) and Malmö in Sweden (ooh, where Wallander is set!), someone leaves a body precisely halfway of the border between the two countries. This means that both Swedish and Danish police have to investigate, forcing an uneasy alliance between two apparent stereotypes who quickly reveal themselves to be a lot more than merely the Swedes and the Danes’ mutual national images: an icy female Swedish detective with Asperger’s (ooh, Dragon Tattoo!) and a salt-of-the-earth male Danish detective. But before investigations have gotten very far, it soon becomes obvious that this is just the tip of a very elaborate plan, one designed to change both countries and their ideas of justice.
And despite the fact it doesn’t have the emotional depth of The Killing, that it’s a little bit unrealistic and there is that slight hint to everything of a global market being eyed, this is actually really good television. So good, in fact, that despite it airing two episodes a week on BBC4 and my PVR actually recording Girls of the 90s on Viva the first time it aired, I actually found time to buck my normal trend and watch it before the next two episodes air tonight. Isn’t that amazing?
Here’s a trailer in Danish, because the BBC, in their infinite wisdom, haven’t put anything up on YouTube in English – although it’s worth remembering that when the show aired in both Sweden and Denmark it had to be subtitled whenever the other country’s characters spoke, so we’re all in it together, here. There’s also a little snippet from the beginning of the first episode as well, because it has a lovely opening sequence that I thought I’d share with you.