The Hundred Code

Loved this series, well acted, clever storyline an edge of your seat drama that had so much further to go.

It was only a matter of time before the Americans got in on the Nordic Noir scene properly instead of remakes and this is the perfect vehicle for so doing. It stars the rather good Dominic Monaghan as Tommy Conley a New York cop with a case he has tracked to Stockholm – that of a serial killer, so he believes. Once there he is teamed up with disgruntled cop Mikael Englund played by the brilliant Michael Nyqvist. It is not a marriage made in heaven but fate will draw them into a bond of sorts.

Then the bodies start turning up and things go from interesting to downright intriguing in a very short period of time. It soon appears to everyone that there is more to this than any of them had envisaged. Add to this the lives of the main players with everyone having a flawed character and the baggage of the past hanging round their necks and influencing their decisions now and you get a rather addictive programme.

This I feel is an excellent series and I dare say we will get season 2 anytime soon which is fine by me. It is in English and Swedish for the most part and the translations are all rather good too. If you like your box sets to be compulsive, convincing and inventive then this is something you should check out.

The "American character" is the main reason I tried this show. Dominic Monaghan is always delightful. If you don't know, he is a Brit. And he is doing a decent job with the NY accent and attitude. His portrayal of a "tough New York cop" is the humor of the show, which is needed in a show like this or it can be terribly dismal. If you have met any guys from New York, this is their general outlook- they are tough because they are from New York, no matter how small they are. I love it. They even bring up the Red Sox vs. Yankees rivalry, which is such a big part of being from Boston (my neck of the woods). The other attitudes about their sports, opinion of guns, so forth, are authentic inside jokes. So I think the nuances of the American character are just lost on an European audience, but a complete delight to us, especially if you realize that the tough New York cop is a hobbit!! So from the sounds of the review from the European viewpoint, it works for both. Watch it!

I really like this series. I think the writing is very good, the plot so far has been excellent and the acting is good. Yes there are flaws, like I said, and that really centres around the accent of Dominic Monaghan as Tommy Conley. It really is a very bad American accent. I am not sure why he couldn't have just been British - would it have really made a difference and it would have been so less painful. I have to say, however, that the acting and plot has been so good that I have not been hung up on his accent as much as I thought I would have been when I watched the first episode.

The murders are original and you feel for the actors. This is not a who-done-it series (although they keep you guessing as to who the mastermind LH is). You know who's done it straight away but the plot is interesting, fast paced and does keep you guessing.

I like Michael Nyqvist as Mikael Eklund. His acting is excellent as always. The other characters are good, although the daughter clearly needs the sense knocking into her.

I enjoy the mix of English and Swedish and the drab setting of Sweden (not that Sweden is drab, but they portray it that way) makes it more believable.

This is not a shocking series but is generally a very good watch and I recommend it to everyone, especially those that like the Bridge / the Tunnel, Wallander and the like.

Last decade has seen dozens of really magnificent and novel creations in the field of crime thrillers, without a single case per episode, but a recurrent case/topic with multiple twists and turns. 100 Code is another fine example of them, well, not up to Bron/Broen or Millennium, but still a thrilling series to follow. The inclusion of an American, wideness of the case and the parallel or subsequent use of both English and Swedish (most Swedes are very good at English) move the events beyond "provincial" mood and environment characteristic to Scandinavian crime from time to time. Nevertheless, the viewers obtain a decent overview of Swedish habits, concepts and nature, plus how all this is perceived by a foreign official.

As for performances, I am surprised that some viewers have found them poor; I find them realistic, as catching offenders is neither constant chases in fancy cars and clothing nor issuing witty remarks at each other, it is a hard and crushing job at the expense of family and friends. In my opinion, all the cast is doing well, yet Michael Nyqvist as Mikael Eklund and Dominic Monaghan as Tommy Conley spend more time on screen.

All in all, a good series, and the very ending was pleasantly tricky. If you like intensive series where crimes are dealt with in a team, then the one in question is definitely for you as well.