Hidden (Craith, UK, 2018)

3D drama

Hdden is no doubt influenced by Scandi-noir, even to the extent of mixing languages; here Welsh and English. It avoids the pitfalls of imitation (which for me Hinterland didn’t) primarily through three-dimensional characters; I even found myself sympathetic to the horrendous villains. This requires great acting and the cast are superb throughout, with Rhodri Meilir’s Dylan possibly being the most outstanding. Directors are important to good acting, Gareth Bryn directed five of the eight episodes, as is script: imdb lists five writers. It’s not only American TV that can use a team of creatives to such a high standard.

TV can score over film because it can digress; for example DI Cadi John’s (Sian Reese-Williams) interrogation of the wrongly imprisoned Endaf Elwy (Mark Lewis Jones), which ran through most of one episode, had time to build his character. His reminiscence about bees was particularly telling. The emphasis on the psychology of all the major, and some minor, characters was fascinating.

Whilst it may not have quite filled The Bridge-sized gap, Hidden was brilliant.

The Bridge (Bron/Broen, Sweden-Denmark, 2018) – series 4

Compelling

It must be difficult to sustain extremely high quality over four series but Hans Rosenfeldt and his crew succeeded with a brilliant end to probably the best police procedural television programme. I’ve little to add to what I’ve written about the previous series (1, 2, 3) just to say that it was great to have such an appealing male character, Thure Lindhardt’s Henrik. The negative representation of men, particularly white and middle aged/class, is entirely justified; in Henrik we can see an entirely caring man who wants to do good. I’ll miss him almost as much as I will Saga.