Estonia

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.

Some of the first reviews here are rather negative but they are missing the point. Even if you're watching this as someone outside of the countries involved (Estonia, Finland, Sweden), it plays out as a mystery, which was how real life folded - no one had any idea what was going on and information was coming in from different mediums at random times. The show captured this perfectly and I hope the rest of the show is able to keep the pace up.

Based on the first episode alone, I think it's going to be just as good as Chernobyl (2019) was which was a solid 9/10.

Acting, visual effects and cinematography are on par with Hollywood productions, while keeping the Nordic aesthetic.

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.

"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.