Estonia

I'm interested in the Estonia for as long as I can remember and when I first heard of a show about the Estonia being in development by the people who brought us 'Chernobyl' (2019), I was beyond excited. I was pretty bummed out by the mixed reactions after the show aired in some territories. Now that I've seen it myself, I get the criticism. Kind of.

Positives first: the show is beautifully shot. I'm usually not a fan of shaky cam but here it just works. We're always very close to the characters, which makes the scenes feel even more powerful and intimate. The soundtrack is amazing! Haunting even. The performances are also good. Also, the show has a high production value and especially the sinking scenes are intense and look impressive (honestly they gave me nightmares).

The problem is that the show is simply too long. The aftermath of the sinking and the inverstigation is stretched out way too much and when it comes to a close, it feels unsatisfying. The scattered way of storytelling and ths constant time jumps also stand in the way of real tension.

Ultimately, the show would have been better if it was maybe 2 episodes shorter. It's well made and at times very tense and emotional but it lacks a dramatic thread and a consistent pace. This is still a recommendation though. Now please release this show outside of Scandinavia for the world to see it! ;)

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.

"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.

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!

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.