Just a heads up. This looks good. Full of atmosphere, quirky characters, pretty dark.

A corpse is found precisely in the middle of the bridge linking Denmark and Sweden. Police from both countries are called: Saga from Sweden and Martin from Denmark. When the corpse is identified as that of a prominent Swedish politician Sara takes charge but when the body is moved it is found to have been cut in half. Post mortem reveals the two halves of the body are from different women killed 13 months apart. One half is a Danish prostitute and drug addict killed over a year before.

Saga and Martin are as different as it is possible to be: she a detached, unemotional quasi-autistic workaholic; he a father of 5 kids from 3 marriages now recovering from a vasectomy. The bizarre circumstances of the the murders force the two to co-operate in trying to resolve the double murder, which it emerges, looks as if it is merely the beginning of a campaign of serial killings. Several inter-linking sub-plots have yet to unravel.

Ten episodes: the first two aired 21.04. and are still on I-Player. Echoes of The Killing.

Check it out.

Z

One episode in and am loving this.

Me too...very watchable!

I am hooked! Social dram and crime too. Just my sort of thing. Saga (fab name!) makes Sarah Lund seem well-adjusted.

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I love the symbol of the Bridge and how the Swedes and Danes view each other with suspicion, in the same way that traditionally the French and the English do. The Dane is all "hygge" as they say - warm, chatty, friendly, welcoming - and the Swede is the one with the power, the cold automaton, taken to extremes in the character of Saga. Is she a high-functioning Autistic?

Female characters are taking off at last with Sarah, the Clare Danes' character in "Homeland", and now this one. Though I'm not sure I'm convinced by her yet - we'll have to see how she develops.

Having worked a lot in Scandinavia, I've been enjoying the abundance of quality Scan-thrillers that we've been lucky enough to have been able to see here recently. The Bridge looks pretty good. It's certainly worth watching but it has borrowed very heavily from The Killing without approaching it in style or credibility. Already there has been too much obviously engineered conflict and unlikely scenarios. Would Saga really have been sent alone to (a) advise the husband of the murdered City Council leader of her death and (b) simultaneously question him about it? Never a job for an unaccompanied officer, let alone one with a personality disorder.

Minor point - not on moral grounds: unnecessarily exposed flesh and genitalia, while spicing things up, can tend to detract from the authenticity too when overdone (I'm not talking about the corpses).

As with The Killing and Borgen, they're doing a good job of supplying plenty of suspects for us to juggle with and both plot and main characters will definitely keep me watching.

Chris

I rather agree with you Chris. Thing about The Killing was its reticence: it didn't go over the top, just good solid believable development of plot and character.

That said The Bridge is certainly as interesting as some of the formulaic American output.

Anyway - just seen a trail for Series 3 of the Killing just coming up.

regards all

Z