Category: TV

Black Space – season 1

On By Rick McIn TVLeave a comment

Intense.

Very watchable.

A rogue detective with unorthodox means leads an investigation into a massacre committed by unicorn mask-wearing assassins at an Israeli high school.

Guri Alfi is very good as the troubled detective.

Black Space refers to a fictitious Israeli social media text app using phone service.

The plot is not believable, however. It would have been easy to narrow down the list of possible shooters if they had made any effort.

Reviews have been mixed. But there will be a season 2.

Before the Frost by Henning Mankell

On By Rick McIn books, movies, TVLeave a comment

In 2002 Mankell published Before the Frost as the first in a 3-book series with Linda Wallander as the main character, rather than her father.

However Mankell abandoned the series after just one novel when the actress playing Linda in the Swedish films, Johanna Sällström, committed suicide in 2007.

Linda Wallander is bored. Just graduated from the police academy, she is waiting to start work at the Ystad police station and move into her own apartment. Meantime, she is living with her father and, like fathers and daughters everywhere, they are driving each other crazy. …

Linda’s boredom doesn’t last long. Soon she is embroiled in the case of her childhood friend Anna, who has inexplicably disappeared.  …

Like other Mankell books, this one involves a cult. A survivor of the  Jonestown massacre in Guyana 1978 returns to Sweden organizing his own death cult.

The Bay – season 2

On By Rick McIn TVLeave a comment

More intense than season 1, but still well worth watching.

Detective Constable Lisa Armstrong was suspended. But is brought back with a demotion.

A lawyer is murdered at his front door. In front of his 10-year-old son.

Shocking.

Solving the murder is the main plot line. But secondary stories are more interesting. And there are quite a few.

Lisa’s ex-husband Andy shows up, for example. That’s a drama.

Again — the acting is good.

I’ll quit here as Morven Christie is leaving before season 3. She’s been the main reason I watched.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The Bay – season 1

On By Rick McIn TVLeave a comment

Good TV.

The Guardian: four stars out of five” — Suspects and police officers with shared secrets? Check. Information wilfully withheld by the writer? Check. Will you be hooked? Check.”

Detective Sergeant Lisa Armstrong (Morven Christie) is the mother of two children and working for (the fictional) West Lancashire Police Service as a Family Liaison Officer (FLO).

She is called out on the case of two missing children  …

Wikipedia

Many twists and turns.

Some OTHER story threads are more interesting than the actual whodunnit.

The detective is a single mother, for example, with two teenagers both getting in serious trouble.

I like the subtle, pastel colour grading used to set the look and feel. Wallander did something similar.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Russian Doll – season 1

On By Rick McIn TVLeave a comment

I like it.

A profane Groundhog Day.

Weird. Original. Smart dialogue.

97% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Russian Doll is an American comedy-drama streaming television series, created by Natasha Lyonne, Leslye Headland, and Amy Poehler …

… follows Nadia Vulvokov (Lyonne), a game developer who repeatedly dies and relives the same night in an ongoing time loop and tries to solve it …

One Step Behind by Henning Mankell

On By Rick McIn books, TVLeave a comment

One Step Behind is a 1997 crime novel by Swedish author Henning Mankell, the 7th in his acclaimed Inspector Wallander series.

Excellent.

An intriguing plot with Wallander facing serious personal health problems.

Two young women and one young man, inexplicably dressed as the nobility of Sweden did during the reign of Gustavus III, are found dead, each slain with a single bullet, their bodies half consumed by animals in the wilderness.

Wallander is horrified when he makes a connection between the crime and his close friend and colleague Svedberg, and after the latter is found savagely murdered …

related – Director Ingmar Bergman was the author’s father-in-law.

Wallander (British) – seasons 3-4

On By Rick McIn books, TVLeave a comment

I watched all 4 seasons of Wallander starring Kenneth Branagh as the eponymous police inspector.

12 episodes, each more like a film than TV show. Shot in Sweden over ten years.

All 12 are great. If anything, I like the final shows best as Kurt learns he has type 2 Diabetes. And fears he’s going to be facing dementia.

Can he stay at work?

Obviously, Branagh is an excellent actor. He’s been nominated for 5 Academy Awards and 5 Golden Globes.

But I’ve always been slightly turned off by egomania.

That said, for me Wallander is his best work I’ve seen. He won the 2017 International Emmy Best Performance by an Actor for the role.

Click PLAY or get some glimpses on YouTube.

The Fifth Woman by Henning Mankell

On By Rick McIn books, TVLeave a comment

The 6th in his acclaimed Inspector Wallander series.

The series gets better and better, seems to me.

The Fifth Woman:

A sadistic serial killer has been preying on men, beginning with a retired car salesman whose interests appear to be limited to bird watching and poetry and whose body was discovered in a punji stick pit; and continuing with a flower shop manager, found starved and garrotted in the woods.

Wallander soon realises both men have a past record of violence towards women, and after another man is drowned in a lake, he goes on the hunt for an avenging angel…

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Sidetracked by Henning Mankell

On By Rick McIn books, TVLeave a comment

I’ve been working my way through the Inspector Kurt Wallander series, starting with Faceless Killers.

Set in Sweden.

Man Who Smiled is #4 — was easily best so far.

Sidetracked #5 almost as good. An intriguing plot, wbell told.

In the sweltering Swedish summer of 1994, a sadistic serial killer begins preying on elderly, successful men, violently slaughtering them with an axe before collecting their scalps as trophies …

Wallander (British) – seasons 1-2

On By Rick McIn books, TVLeave a comment

I signed up for a free month of Britbox to try Wallander starring Kenneth Branagh as the eponymous police inspector.

First episode is based on the #5 book Sidetracked.

Emmy-award-winning director Philip Martin was hired as lead director. Martin worked with cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle to establish a visual style for the series. …

Like Branagh, Philip Martin did not watch any of the Swedish-language Wallander films so that he could bring a fresh interpretation to the films.

It is well done.

Branagh, born in Belfast, is terrific. Perfect as the flawed detective with many demons.

But Tom Hiddleston tends to steal every scene in which he appears.

It was Branagh who later asked Hiddleston to audition for the film Thor.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.