Rebecka Martinsson

My wife and I had watched Season 1 years ago. We watched Season 2 and then went back and watched Season 1 again. We didn't remember the plots or who did it. The actress playing Rebecka in Season 1 is better than the one in Season 2. The episodes in Season 1 are also better scripted. We want to give Season 1 a 7.5 and Season 2 a 7.0, but we can't so the series gets a 7.0. We would recommend Season 1.

The atmosphere and ambient of gloomy but astonishing Norther part of Sweden, has been achieved fully. Thats why I watched this show. Also, minimalist, but still very compact police station crew is excellent. The main inspector, Ana-Maria Mella, local with three kids at home, but still with all skills necessary for the police inspector, is a brilliant character. The other supporting characters, who all don't talk much, but say whats necessary, are all well done. The only real misfit, for completely unknown reason, badly written and poorly conceptualized character is the lead character - Rebecka Martinsson, who is wage and unclear from the beginning, but still not a mysterious at all. It seems she is a girl who has everything, a spoiled, educated, rich, who simply despises everything due to some traumas from early life, and finds her fulfillment in solving murders . However, we don't see why and how someone who had lost her parents early in life, and had to struggle heavily to achieve something, would behave like a spoiled careless diva, who wonders around and does what pleases her. Also, nobody understands how all of a sudden a corporate layer age 28 can become a chief criminal prosecutor, and how come she is qualified for that. It seems that her character is simply badly written and badly incorporated in the plot. Also, the acting in itself fails in this cases - no charisma, no chemistry at all between the actress and her role. In general, good show, with a wrong lead character. The authors should think about it.

This series definitely suffers from losing Ida Engvoll as the eponymous character.

Rebecka is now more insecure and less interesting.

The stories are pretty straightforward with little in the way of red-herrings, false leads or plot twists.

There cannot be too many dramas with the line "do you think this has anything to do with the dead reindeer."

The teasers before the title credits got me interested each time and how each story played out kept my interest. The characters were given real depth and quirks - Some of them are shown to be quite imperfect and therefore very human. I really like the format of 4 x 90 minute contained stories. Afterwards, I found myself looking up several of the cast member's back catalogue and that's always a good thing. Quality stuff.

This eight episode series, made up of four two part stories, follows Stockholm lawyer Rebecka Martinsson, who returns to her home town in Sweden's far north after the death of somebody she knew as a child. Initially it looks as though the woman, the local vicar, died in an accident but evidence soon suggests otherwise. Rebecka gets involved in the investigation, sometimes going beyond what is strictly legal. Various suspects arise but when the killer is identified it comes as a surprise and leads to a tragic conclusion to the first story. After the series opener Rebecka is offered a job working as a local prosecutor before her planned move back to Stockholm in the summer. Further stories involve the murder of a woman connected to a local mining company; the death of two divers exploring a Nazi aircraft and the murder of a woman whose family has suffered a number of tragic 'accidents'.

In some ways this is a fairly traditional murder mystery series with its distinct stories that are wrapped up in two hours; however the events of one episode do have effects on characters that last beyond that story. There are also some fairly dark moments that will shock anybody expecting a Swedish 'Midsomer Murders'. Ida Engvoll does a fine job as our eponymous heroine making her believable even when she was breaking rules. Rebecka may be the title character but there are others who are almost as important; most notably police woman Anna Maria Mella and dog handler Krister Eriksson; Eva Melander and Jakob Öhrman impress in these roles. There is plenty of great scenery to be seen without it feeling like it is being shown just to show us how beautiful the area is. Overall I'd recommend this to fans of Scandinavian drama who are looking for shorter stories than most such series that have aired here in the UK. I hope there is a second season.

These comments are based on watching the series in Swedish with English subtitles.