Maria Wern

Years ago I belonged to MHz Choice and watch many Scandie Noir series. Maria Wern was one of my favorites., in part because of the amazing Eva Rose (who plays Maria). Also because of the very good mysteries.

Recently I've found that the series has kept on going and it just keeps getting better and better.

The action takes place in Gotland, Sweden.. So we've got another small place that has an inordinate number of murders!

Maria is a police detective and works with a dedicate team.

Somewhere along the way a partner named "Sebastian" shows up and the sparks fly. The two characters (Maria and Sebastian) AND the two actors. (Eva and Erik) have a wonderful chemistry that to the writers' and actors' credit does not overwhelm a la "Moonlighting".

It is good and if you have a chance, worth watching it.

Well, first, how there could be that many murders in Gotland, but never mind. What confuses me is what exactly was made. According to IMDb, we got a four part series in 2008, and four separate episodes in 2010 (plus the feature movie in 2012). I have four English subtitle files for the 2008 series, but not the vids, and I've watched six episodes from 2010, not four (five of the English sub files needed to be re-synched). I have the movie vid, but there are no English subs (yet).

As far as the show goes, well, nothing special. The Maria Wern character is a pretty ordinary cop, she seems to have no special gifts, no unusual personality quirks. Aside from the actress being pleasant to watch, I don't really get why this needed to be made. I enjoyed it well enough, but am I jonesing over the 2008 and 2012 material I haven't seen? Not really.

Maria is Sebstian's supervisor. They are lovers and live together. They are always at crime scenes together even when it is unnecessary. They are put in situations when one is responsible for the well-being, safety, and security of the other. Situations when one makes decisions that otherwise would not be made if they weren't lovers. Ridiculous. No police department in the world would allow such a situation to continue. For me, it detracts from generally interesting stories, beautiful scenery, and acting and dialogue that has improved with time. Although at times the two lovers act like teenagers.

Maria Wern is a policewoman who deals with the unusual high amount of murders on the Swedish Island of Gotland.

The early seasons does not work well as a series and more as self-standing movies with huge plot holes and inconsistent writing. Things that has happened in earlier episodes seems to not matter in the next.* But the last season's has gotten better with Warner Bros. Taking an interest and making the story better. But still, this is not a masterpiece and you need to have a little suspension of disbelief when watching these kind of shows. But overall, it really has improved and I hope that season 9 will be much better.

*Especially in season 3 where lots of murders take place and has almost no impact on the characters.

they won't have the chance to become so popular. First of all, terrible screenplays from the first to the last. Secondly, don't know why we have to focus on the single parent with regular I.Q., without any detecting gene woman, Maria Wern, to be the major role. Thirdly, all the supporting roles in this serious are also not too good or too bright to be taken seriously as detectives, just a bunch of low I.Q. people who even being in uniforms would not be quite qualified albeit being detectives. Maria Mern? There's nothing special or worth specifying her as the leading role in this non-talented, brainless, no imagination, no initiation, no nothing character to waste our viewers' time. But the major problem is still on the bad screenplays, not just absurd, predictable, pretentious, but absolutely unnecessary.

This is one of the worst Scandinavian dramas, definitely not qualified to be included in "mystery drama" genre.

Oh, by the way, strongly suggest MHz Int'l TV Channel not just to stop broadcasting this one, but also those lousy so-called mystery dramas from Italy, such as the one with the Catholic father, and that two love birds detective one(Inspector Montalbano may be the only one not to be cut), because they are so shallow, so elementary, so childish and so ridiculous.