Estonia

It's not easy to make a tv-series about a catastrophy with good taste today. The audience has short attention span and is used to overstimulation. Anything not predigested and sensationalized is quickly labelled boring. It's a series with eight episodes yet people complain when everything isn't clear and explained within the first 15 minutes. If you stop scrolling as you watch and concentrate a little bit the show offers a chilling and gripping account of the events. The scenes are atmospheric, understated yet effective. The characters and their reactions are believable and at times very touching. The series does a great job showing the disaster and it's aftermath from different perspectives. But if you are looking for quick answers and straightforward action scenes Estonia is definitely not for you.

This series was a respectful take on the events of the investigation. I think it is supposed to be confusing and jumping all over the place - because that is what happened in the aftermath of the disaster. Different countries, sources and media outlets were all publishing contradictions of one another, at random times and yet the families and survivors were no closer to the answers they needed.

This series perfectly summed up the sentiment of the time. If you were confused, that is the point ! Because the families were just as confused at the time.

The cinematography of the sinking scenes were great.

Wow, just wow! I can feel the tension in the air while watching Estonia. There are so many things to love!

• They totally capture the horrible happening of Estonia sinking. I do believe the story here, how the people acted, or reacted to the situation of a boat sinking.

• How the story keeps going back and forth between countries, characters and happenings. We get to witness flashbacks and at the same time see how each character handles their situation.

• I just love the use of multiple languages. We need more series like this! There are some out there, but hey, we need more. A lot of us, living in the northern countries of Europe, do understand and speak multiple languages and I think it's quite rare to see this feature being used on TV. I love it!

• Investigations that go on and on. How they handle the media. How they handle grief. Just how they do anything, really.

I don't want to spoil anything, just do yourself a favour and watch the show!

If you know what goes into a production of this scale, the sheer logistics, then you can appreciate the brilliant work this film making is on several levels. Acting was superb - not "pushed" or forced with some standout scenes. While in parts the story slows to an unbearable pace you could argue this lends itself to the notion of time it took in reality for the final report to be completed. It really did make this viewer 'feel' the frustrations of the investigation, the length of time & politics being played out etc. Editing & sound of the rescue scenes & actual disaster unfolding onboard, particularly in raft scenes was gobsmackingly good.

"Too much talking and arguing for nothing."

Positives: Actors were ok. Cinematography ok. Production quite ok.

Negatives:

Too few information/story about what happened on Estonia before sinking, even though 137 people really survived. Most of the story is just random short survivor stories with no real value to anyone.

Sounds were bad, sometimes effects and/or music was so loud that you could not hear the dialogue.

This could have been 3 hour tight package (3-4 episodes), but now it was boring 8 episode/hour speaky-talky-marathon. Too much repetition on scenes.

Conclusion:

Do not waste your time on this, just watch some documentary if you are interested on Estonia disaster.