"The Bridge" - Season 4 on BBC2

[Anna]

well as i watch the resumed Leveson hearings i must say that although i would have objected to the portrayal of Saga Noren as so dysfunctional a personality the exposure of the senior ranks of the MPS before m'lud has swept aside any such objections as to realism ....

my main curiosity is to what extent the Bridge will unfold as satire or comedy .... there is a lot of deadpan humour going on which i find enjoyable

Yes, dysfunctional applies to the majority of characters in The Bridge, I'm wondering about August in particular, but you are right, there is a lot of humour going on as well. As to Leveson, I am greatly looking forward to Murdoch Pere et Fils giving their evidence this week......

[jean]

Give me Inspector Montalbano every time.

[Dave2002]

[Is there some long-standing tension between Denmark and Sweden and is the portrayal of the obsessive Swedish detective a bit of a Danish laugh at Swedish national characteristics?]

More often Norway/Sweden I think. Not quite sure if it compares with Scotland/England.

Not seen this yet, but it's ready to go.

[Rowan Tree]

Surely the Swedish detective suffers from Aspergers and it is this that sets her apart, makes her "unequal" and thus vulnerable- as all the other characters will prove to be in one way or another. Her character may, as aeolium has said, be a dig at the perceived mind-set of the Swedish people if so I guess there will be a reciprocal dig at the Danes (if we have not already missed it), anyway already more weight and laughs in the first two hours than in the other three dramas put together (great as they were). I found the first double episode a stunning success and the acting, both physically and emotionally, breath-taking.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

info as to creative intent

interesting that

Rosenfeldt and his colleagues created The Bridge back in 2006, although funding problems meant that the series nearly became “just another one for the drawer”

[Anna]

Thanks for that calum, interesting that it was shelved for so long. I have family member who has lived in Sweden for around 15 years (has Swedish partner), I was going to email to ask him about Swedish-Danish relations but then got worried he would tell me Whodunnit!

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

i dont know so much about the Swedes and danes but i was at a conference in late 70s hosted by Norwegians and with Brit Dutch Swedish and many other nationalities preesent ... as was custom on last night we pooled our duty free booze and all got very drunk .... the Norwegians and Swedes had by far the largest collection of bad jokes and insults about each other ... very funny too we voted them the champions of prejudice ... since that was the drunken competition we had embarked upon ...

[Resurrection Man]

Give me Inspector Montalbano every time.

Well said. I couldn't agree with you more.

Compared to The Killing and Borgen, The Bridge is a pale imitation. Characters are two-dimensional, the fact that she has Aspergers...why don't they flash up a big 48point font subtitle it is so obvious. Very bleak. I do agree that the night filing is atmospheric.

[DracoM]

Crikey, people, we've had only the two epis so far, there are at least three separate stories bubbling, and already people are writing it off! And as for the Asperges thing, how many TV soaps/ [plays/ let alone detective thriller series do you know which have come even close to taking on board the impact on self and those around sufferer of Asperges?? In a profession in which system, investigation, imagination, correlation of detail should be allied to intuition, sensing attitudes, detecting lies and half truths etc, and creating trust, can you not see that having an Asperges affected detective is to say the least an interesting proposition, creates a fascinating dialectic? She simply cannot understand relationships at all. He is deeply enmeshed in family / relationships. All those bizarre night time phone calls? The supermarket buying of sex in the bar? Done for specific purpose.

The shambling one is shrewd, apparently disorganised, laid back and aware of the affective side, the blonde ADHD one has a sharp way with questioning over process, recall, detail, but is utterly unable to 'read' faces so far. Together it might be fine, or a tug of war, or just a war. Let's just see it unfold.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Bravo, DracoM!

[DracoM]

IthangU

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Hear! Hear! DracoM!

and i might add it is an 'entertainment'

[aeolium]

But don't you think we are more tolerant of any shortcomings in crime serials if they are Scandinavian than we would be with British equivalents, Calum? I agree that The Killing was outstanding, but a lot of Wallander was really pretty poor imo.

I think I'm more intrigued by the case of the MI6 officer whose body was found in a padlocked holdall than by the murder plot of The Bridge - one for Sherlock Holmes or perhaps Smiley?

[DracoM]

Trouble is that RL is in this case [ha!] crazier and less explicable than fiction and just imagine a TV company getting that script for a series and laughing it out of court.

Then suddenly, they open their newspapers and..................

[Resurrection Man]

Crikey, people, we've had only the two epis so far, there are at least three separate stories bubbling, and already people are writing it off! And as for the Asperges thing, how many TV soaps/ [plays/ let alone detective thriller series do you know which have come even close to taking on board the impact on self and those around sufferer of Asperges?? In a profession in which system, investigation, imagination, correlation of detail should be allied to intuition, sensing attitudes, detecting lies and half truths etc, and creating trust, can you not see that having an Asperges affected detective is to say the least an interesting proposition, creates a fascinating dialectic? She simply cannot understand relationships at all. He is deeply enmeshed in family / relationships. All those bizarre night time phone calls? The supermarket buying of sex in the bar? Done for specific purpose.

The shambling one is shrewd, apparently disorganised, laid back and aware of the affective side, the blonde ADHD one has a sharp way with questioning over process, recall, detail, but is utterly unable to 'read' faces so far. Together it might be fine, or a tug of war, or just a war. Let's just see it unfold.

Three stories ?

I can't get that excited about it to be honest. It lacks subtlety and finesse.

BTW ADHD is not the same as Asperger's. She exhibits all the characteristics of Aspergers' but not ADHD.