Kapningen

This was a series that made you use your brain, which I like. It was complicated, running in two different years with flashbacks to 2014 that explained some of the events happening in the present day.

There was one weakness. I guessed who the hijack baddie was in the first episode and it turned out I was right. However, these actions were set against those of the Swedish secret services who'd behaved just as disgracefully and had engendered the events of the present.

The action was fast paced and the acting was competent. It helped that this was a spin off from STKHM Requiem, so we knew the characters.

I definitely recommend this.

As the apparent next series after STHLM Requiem, I was hopeful that it would be its equal. Kapningen has the same actors but not the same action, excitement or anticipation that was found throughout STHLM Requiem. When dealing with hijacking, terrorism, and intrigue a show builds up a crescendo, not unlike a heart beating faster and faster until the final explosive moments. Kapningen has no such build up. It is acting at the pace of a sleeping sloths heart. I believe that if not for the presence of the actors for whom I had grown to like, I would not have even bothered to venture watching the show's second episode. As befitting a great ensemble weekly piece (such as Breaking Bad, The Wire), I would look forward to the next week's installment with high anticipation. Sadly, I am not really looking forward to next Thursday to watch the latest installment of Kapningen. Instead my mind is on, "What's for dinner next Thursday."

Some familiar faces but that doesn't save this from disappointing. Adam Lundgren (The Restaurant), Jonas Karlsson (Beck). Ana Gil de Melo Nascimento (Jordskott).

It starts of ok, but it long and drawn out and at the end I hadn't much of an idea as to why the plane was hijacked. The pilot was either acting badly or reflecting how somebody in that situation would react.

Ana Gil de Melo Nascimento I found very poor.

Not much of it made any sense.

When a Nordic Airlines flight to the USA is hijacked, a team of Swedish investigators must race against time to unmask the mysterious hijackers before they bring the airplane down or the US military shoot it out of the sky.

This six-part Swedish drama series opens with a Lebanese lecturer starting to give a talk about Middle Eastern music. He doesn't get far as he is arrested; it is claimed he has links to terrorist although he denies it. Sometime afterwards strange things start to occur on a flight from Stockholm to San Francisco... The instruments briefly blackout and when they return a message warns of dire consequences if the lecturer isn't released along with information regarding 'Operation Tennyson', an operation the security services deny any knowledge of. Will the police and security services and the flight crew be able to solve the problem before the plane reaches US airspace where authorities have threatened to shoot it down?

I thought this was a taut little thriller. It might not be the most original and it does require some suspension of disbelief but this is forgivable as, once things get started, the level of tension remains high. The cast does a solid job bringing the story to life. At only six episodes in length the series doesn't outstay its welcome and when it is over it does feel nicely wrapped up. Overall a solid series; perhaps not a must watch but still worth giving a go.

These comments are based on watching the series in Swedish with English subtitles.

This is very slow. After the first couple of episodes, I was ready to give up, but I was hoping it would find some pace - unfortunately it doesn't. I only stayed with it since I like anything with Jonas Karlsson.

Feels like they are trying to use the popularity of STHLM Requiem to segway into a genre they don't master. It doesn't work for me.

Also, casting Jeroen Van der Ven as an American is just ridiculous. His American accent isn't quite good enough. Surely, there are enough American actors around for that not to be necessary?

Jonas Karlsson doesn't disappoint but he can't save this one. Glad this is over.