Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2021/01/08/a-parody-of-every-single-scandinavian-crime-drama.html
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I’ve watched Trapped - it’s fantastic! I would add Fortitude (Norway) to the list. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortitude_(TV_series)
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There’s loads of good Icelandic ones. Graben (Danish IIRC) is also worth a watch.
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We’ve seen all of these. The spousal unit is a huge fan of this genre of fiction, and so we see all the TV shows too. The Bridge is, by far, the best of them. After that I like Wallander and Trapped. Fans of the Wallander books don’t care for the Branagh series, but I liked it.
But The Bridge is imitated over and over again, especially the female lead (Saga, by Sofia Helin). Saga’s partner is played by the same actor (Kim Bodnia) who played the heavy-set Russian guy in Killing Eve; he’s really great in The Bridge. We’re watching a series now, set in Bregenz (in English “Murder by the Lake”), and it’s clearly imitating The Bridge’s Saga.
BTW, if you watch Murder by the Lake hoping to see the scenery around the Bodensee, don’t. You’ll see the same three houses and the same stretch of road over and over again. It’s not bad, once you’re past the first episode, in which the female lead seems to be having trouble playing a stony faced character while also conveying emotion, something Helin was really good at in The Bridge.
[edit: untangle some of the rambling.]
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I haven’t seen most of these, but I second @Malarkey’s recommendation of Trapped, which is excellent.
I’d add Bordertown (Finland), which has a quirky Sherlock Holmes type as a principal character
Fallet (Sweden) is a spoof about a collaboration between a by-the-books English detective and a loose-cannon Swede.
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Fortitude is from the UK, not Norway - and it’s very much an unintentional comedy viewed with Norwegian eyes.
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You are correct! I read the synopsis incorrectly when I Googled. Thank you!
It’s a dark comedy with an environmental message to this American’s eyes.
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Saturday night viewing on BBC4 is a couple of episodes of European crime.
The Killing was popular too (I believe it was re-made for USA). Currently Spiral from France is back, a very different view of Paris.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-OOpZitfd0
Bonus video: Enjoy this parody movie trailer from the British comedy show Taskmaster
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Two more from the UK I really enjoyed:
Shetland
Hinterland (Y Gwyll)
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No mention of Wisting (Norway) with Carrie Anne Moss or Beneath the Surface (Denmark).
The first two series of Occupied (Norway) are also worth a look - the third, and final, series is however, terrible.
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And of course, Broadchurch (at least the first series).
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Agreed in all cases.
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Welcome to BoingBoing!
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I don’t doubt it! I’m just too close to the culture it’s trying to depict, and since it gets it a little wrong and is a bit off most of the time, there’s an almost uncanny valley effect for me.
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Thank you! Looong time reader, first time poster.
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We love these series and I will echo that Trapped was brilliant, as well as a Greenlandish one called Tunn Is (Thin Ice).
One of my favorites was Valkyrien, or “Norwegian Breaking Bad” as I called it, where the once upstanding citizen’s spiral down into a the underbelly of criminal society with the aid of a plucky younger acquaintance was not to cook meth, but rather to set up a … health clinic.
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Thanks for all of the recommendations! I just recently got into this genre with the recent Valhalla Murders and Bordertown and I just can’t get enough of Scandinavia!
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Der Pass (Pagan Peak) was great, too.
Also - while not a crime drama, and also not Scandinavian (though the characters were trying to get close to the Finnish border) if the whole huge swaths of snowy icy vastness is a big part of the draw, To the Lake was fantastic, exciting, funny in places and uncanny in that it was a respiratory pandemic plot, produced in 2019.
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