Midnight Sun / Midnattssol / Jour Polaire (Swedish-French 2016), Modus Season 1 (Swedish 2015), The Bridge Season 4 (Bron / Broen, Danish-Swedish 2017), Spring Tide Season 1 (Springfloden, Swedish 2016), Before We Die (Innan Vi Dör, Swedish 2017)

We surely have to wonder why it is that so much of our prime-time TV entertainment is stories about serial killers and repulsive murders, fictional and ‘true life’.

I’m not going there here and now. There’s a book, or a thesis, or both, in that inquiry.

Suffice to say for many years I’ve tried to avoid the serial killer thriller genre. Recently however I’ve been out of sorts. It’s been cold and I’ve been angry. It’s felt timely to check out a few TV offerings on the darker side.

I’ve blogged about TV sci-fi thrillers Transfer (Transferts, French 2017) and Counterpart (US 2018) – ‘Losing My Religion: Two short TV reviews’. I’ve blogged about the morality of the Norwegian series Monster (2017) – ‘Review: TV series – Monster’. I’ve blogged about terrorist thrillers Greyzone (Gråzon, Danish-Swedish-German 2018), Blue Eyes (Blå ögen, Swedish 2014), Below the Surface (Gidseltagningen, Danish 2017) and Next of Kin (UK 2018) – ‘The TV Terrorist in Western Europe – a short review’.

Here, some oddments: Midnight Sun (Midnattssol / Jour Polaire, Swedish-French 2016), Modus, the first season (Swedish 2015), and Spring Tide (Springfloden, Swedish 2016), linked by that insistence on inventively gruesome killings, and by a strange – to my mind – preachiness.

My problem with these TV series is that I’m not sure setting fictional murders against the backdrops of worthy social issues makes up for exploiting voyeuristic appetites for sadistic slaughter.

Midnight Sun takes place in and around a mining town in northern Sweden. It’s a tale about the awful consequences that ensue when corporations and communities disregard, despise, an Indigenous culture, in this case the Sami peoples of far north Sweden. It’s a plea for greater awareness and understanding of surviving Indigenous cultures.

Modus is, I assume, short for ‘modus operandi’ (Latin, “way of operating”), its lead character being a crime suspect profiler. Season 1 is a tale about the awful consequences when an insular culture overseas, in this case in America, demonises a society whose values it abhors, in this case that society being Sweden, and the despised value being tolerance. It’s a plea to unite against homophobia.

Spring Tide starts with an horrific sadistic killing, which does lead to other killings, but doesn’t fit the template of the one-sadistic-killing-piled-on-another narrative. It’s a tale of more awful consequences of international corporations behaving unethically (another mining company). It’s a plea for inclusivity, a fable about valuing the contributions of those who might be seen as outsiders: the homeless, the petty crims and prostitutes, the alcoholics, drug abusers, the mentally ill, the very young, and those still in training. The investigative team in Spring Tide could not crack this cold case without the input of people on the margins.

I watched these three series along with another so-called Nordic Noir series: The Bridge Season 4 (Bron / Broen, Danish-Swedish co-production 2018).

The Bridge S4 shares with Midnight Sun and Modus S1 a similar narrative structure: a sequence of exceptionally horrific, sadistic killings. But it is not built on a social agenda e.g. Indigenous rights, LGBTQI rights. (I assume readers are aware the lead investigator in The Bridge series is a woman with Neuraldiversity autism. I do not see the agenda of The Bridge S4 as a plea for awareness and understanding of Neuraldivergent persons.)

If The Bridge S4 has a social message, it’s as broad as Parents, love and protect your kids. Oh – and cults. As with Modus S1, there’s a takeaway here – beware of cults. I enjoyed The Bridge S4 significantly more than the other series discussed here so far. I found it more emotionally affecting. It rang more true to me.

I did like aspects of Spring Tide. I like that it rejects the usual Nordic Noir visual palette of overcast greys in favour of a spring aesthetic: pinks (magenta, fuchsia) and greens. I enjoyed the fresh appearance of the young lead actress, Julia Ragnarsson.

Midnight Sun? Not a lot I liked (oh ok, Gustav Hammarsten as investigator Anders Harnesk). Modus S1? I liked the evolving partnership of the lead investigators. I liked it even better in Modus S2 (which has the added drawcards of Kim Cattrall playing the USA’s first female president, and English actor Greg Wise playing a nightmare abusive ex-lover).

In point of fact perhaps my favourite recent Nordic Noir was Before We Die (Innan Vi Dör, Swedish 2017), which doesn’t feature freaky grotesque staged murders at all but is instead a family drama-crime ring infiltrator thriller where people are shot and people are knifed in frankly routine ways.

But the plot worked.