The Bridge · Season 1 · Episode 1 · 21 September 2011
S1E1 Episode 1
THE MOMENT Saga's initial briefing with her Danish counterpart - the character's social register established in three exchanges.
The premiere's central image is perfect genre television: a body on the bridge, cut at the border, comprising two different women. The initial investigative puzzle is strong, but what the episode does with Saga Noren in her first interactions establishes the character's register definitively. The cross-border tension between the Swedish and Danish procedures arrives immediately and without explanation - the...
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The Bridge Season 1 Episode 1 aired September 21, 2011 on SVT1 and DR1 as the premiere of the ten-episode first season. Rotten Tomatoes holds Season 1 at 95 percent. Created by Hans Rosenfeldt, the Swedish-Danish co-production launches with one of the finest premise-establishing images in detective television: a body on the Oresund Bridge, divided precisely at the Sweden-Denmark border, comprising two different women. Sofia Helin's Saga Noren is established in three interactions with her Danish counterpart and the character is fully legible immediately - a professional operating with complete integrity within the frame of her own perception, with no ability to read the social codes the investigation demands. The cross-border procedural friction between Swedish and Danish institutions arrives without explanation. The premiere trusts its viewers to locate the political intelligence in the character mechanics.