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NORDIC NOIR

NORDIC NOIR

What we’ll learn about Saga in The Bridge’s final season

The writer behind Swedish-Danish crime drama hit The Bridge has revealed one interesting detail we're going to find out more about in the series' fourth and final season.

Published: 25 August 2016 15:57 CEST
What we'll learn about Saga in The Bridge's final season
Sofia Helin as Saga Norén. Photo: Carolina Romare/Filmlance International AB

Writer Hans Rosenfeldt spoke to Swedish tabloid Expressen after Danish broadcasters confirmed that the fourth season is also going to be the final season of the Nordic Noir mega hit.

“We all went into the fourth season to finish it, not least Sofia [Helin, who plays lead character Saga Norén] who has an enormously tough schedule, away from her family for six months. So we said: if we're doing another one it will be the last one,” said Hans Rosenfeldt.

He also revealed that the majority of the plot would be based in Copenhagen, but declined to divulge much more about the hyped season apart from one detail about the detective heroine's iconic green Porsche 911.

“We're changing countries for the investigation itself. It has always been Sweden-based but now it's going to be Denmark-based.”

“There's going to be a case to solve and then both lead characters will have a personal journey, and the less I say about that the better, I think. But one small detail is that we're going to find out where Saga got her Porsche from,” he said.

The head of drama at Danish broadcaster DR, a co-producer behind the series, Piv Bernth, confirmed last week that the series is not expected to continue beyond the fourth season.

“Without giving away the plot, it does not allow for further continuation,” she said in a press release.

As The Local has previously reported, the premiere date for the fourth season has not yet been set, but the eight episodes are expected to air at some point in 2018 in the Nordic countries.

Sofia Helin and Thure Lindhardt will both return as Swedish and Danish detectives Saga Norén and Henrik Sabroe in the new season, which kicks off around a year-and-a-half after the last episode. Shooting is scheduled to start in November.

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Danish shows take TV world by storm

With original boundary-breaking content, thrilling plots and charismatic actors, Danish television series have captivated audiences worldwide in recent years.

Published: 7 January 2019 13:37 CET
Danish shows take TV world by storm
Danish actor Lars Mikkelsen plays the lead role in Ride Upon The Storm (Herrens Veje). Photo: Mads Joakim Rimer Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix

The latest show to hit the small screen is “Ride Upon the Storm” (Danish title: Herrens Veje), which is being distributed in almost 80 countries with a debut later this month in Britain, where it will be broadcast on Channel 4 by the station’s foreign language arm Walter Presents from January 28th.

The new drama was created by Adam Price, the BAFTA winner behind the acclaimed drama “Borgen”, which followed the political and personal tribulations of a Danish woman prime minister.

Danish shows, with both exoticism and gritty realism, have quickly soared in popularity beyond their initial local Scandinavian viewership, Pia Jensen, an Aarhus University communications associate professor specialising in television series, told AFP.

Long known for the Nordic noir crime genre, the big international breakthrough for Danish shows came with “The Killing”, a hard-hitting series following a Copenhagen female cop's investigations.

Then came crime thriller “The Bridge” in 2011.

The Nordic noir genre has proven so popular that its aesthetic and themes are now being replicated beyond Scandinavia's borders, with shows such as “Shetland” and “Broadchurch” made in Britain, Jensen said.

For foreign audiences, Denmark as it is shown on television is “an exotic society, something to aspire to because of the welfare state and the strong women characters”, she said, referring also to the 2010 hit “Borgen”.

She added, clearly amused, that it's “as if Denmark is the fantasy land of gender equality”.

Paradoxically, in this almost utopian world, the characters are “normal” people with whom audiences can identify, according to Jensen.

But now Danish TV series have moved beyond Nordic noir.

“Ride Upon the Storm” is a character-led drama about faith and a family of Danish priests, dominated by Johannes Krogh, a tempestuous God-like father battling numerous demons.

Actor Lars Mikkelsen, known from “The Killing” and his role as the Russian president in Netflix's “House of Cards”, plays Johannes, a role for which he won an International Emmy in November.

Mikkelsen “has set new standards for the portrayal of a main character in a TV series”, the show's creator Adam Price told AFP.

Johannes “is the 10th generation of priests, it's a huge burden that haunts him and he lets it haunt his sons too”.

His eldest son Christian is lost and at odds with the family and society, while younger son August is married and following in his father's priesthood footsteps before becoming a chaplain for troops stationed in Afghanistan.

“In the Bible, you have lots of stories of fathers and sons and brothers. That was the perfect ground to tell (a story) about masculine relationships, the competitive gene between men in a family,” Price said.

Elements from “Borgen” can be seen in Price's new venture: the efficient prime minister Birgitte Nyborg and Johannes Krogh, who is headed for the top as Bishop of Copenhagen, are both characters passionate about their work.

“But Johannes reacts differently than Birgitte (does) because his ambition is not within the world of politics, but with a more supernatural power,” Price said.

Thoughts on faith, religion and spirituality are mixed with a complex study of family.

“Religion is sometimes something imposed, as authority can be imposed on our children in a family. And both are dealt with in 'Ride Upon the Storm',” he said.

Price is currently working on “Ragnarok” for Netflix, a six-part Norwegian coming-of-age drama based on Norse mythology but set in a modern-day high school.

The second season of “Ride Upon the Storm” just wrapped up on Danish public television DR, which produced the series, and had around 500,000 viewers.

“Danish producers are mainly thinking of a Danish audience. It has to stay relevant to the Danish public and that's why DR keeps experimenting,” Jensen said.

“Some of the shows will travel and some won't.”

READ ALSO: The Bridge's Porsche 911 to be auctioned for charity