I looked in here to get some clarification about the time line of the Red Wolf episode. In the office Annika was talking to Berit, one of the other reporters who was apparently an old-time lefty. Berit mentions she and a woman on the TV, perhaps the minister of culture, protested the Vietnam war together. But both the actress who plays Berit and the one who is the culture minister are too young to have been protesting the Vietnam war. The actress was ten years old in 1972, the last big year for protests.
In another episode Annika recalls being nearly raped as a young girl. This is an unfortunate cliché, as it seems so many female detectives are survivors of rape. Most male detectives (on US TV at least) on the other hand are not only war veterans but also combat veterans. Both are unimaginative attempts to layer world-weariness onto characters who more likely have led ordinary comfortable suburban lives. I noticed in particular in TV series the Vietnam-vet trope was really stretched, giving detectives war cred who were too young to have been there. There was a period where it finally became too implausible, with detectives in their 30s, in the 1990s, being Vietnam vets, so they started making them be veterans of Grenada (!), and even Panama. Then the first Gulf War came along, and they could be veterans of that at least, even though it was a very brief war. Now with Iraq and Afghanistan police depts will be well stocked with the necessary gravitas that only combat experience can provide, for many years to come.
The home life seems a cliché and predictable--the kids are tacked on. Would anyone notice if they were different from one episode to the next? You'd think the perennially put-upon spouse would have resigned himself to her schedule after all these years. And Annika's newsroom, with its "stop the presses"-type reporting seems an anachronism. No layoffs in this place! The gruff suspender-wearing editor is a pale copy of J. Jonah Jameson from the Spiderman comics of an earlier era.
Still, I enjoy the show because the cinematography is beautiful, and it's nice to see the ridiculously glamorous Malin Crepin poking around in various interesting locations in Sweden, which we in the US don't often get to see.
In another episode Annika recalls being nearly raped as a young girl. This is an unfortunate cliché, as it seems so many female detectives are survivors of rape. Most male detectives (on US TV at least) on the other hand are not only war veterans but also combat veterans. Both are unimaginative attempts to layer world-weariness onto characters who more likely have led ordinary comfortable suburban lives. I noticed in particular in TV series the Vietnam-vet trope was really stretched, giving detectives war cred who were too young to have been there. There was a period where it finally became too implausible, with detectives in their 30s, in the 1990s, being Vietnam vets, so they started making them be veterans of Grenada (!), and even Panama. Then the first Gulf War came along, and they could be veterans of that at least, even though it was a very brief war. Now with Iraq and Afghanistan police depts will be well stocked with the necessary gravitas that only combat experience can provide, for many years to come.
The home life seems a cliché and predictable--the kids are tacked on. Would anyone notice if they were different from one episode to the next? You'd think the perennially put-upon spouse would have resigned himself to her schedule after all these years. And Annika's newsroom, with its "stop the presses"-type reporting seems an anachronism. No layoffs in this place! The gruff suspender-wearing editor is a pale copy of J. Jonah Jameson from the Spiderman comics of an earlier era.
Still, I enjoy the show because the cinematography is beautiful, and it's nice to see the ridiculously glamorous Malin Crepin poking around in various interesting locations in Sweden, which we in the US don't often get to see.