Lhademmor Imagine this: A writer comes into his boss' office - he has been told to come up with pitch for a new Swedish series, since Lord knows they're booming at the moment. The two exchange pleasantries and the boss asks what he has come up with. "Well", the writer fumbles with his papers, "I have three different ideas. How do these sound?"The story of intrigue and betrayal at the highest levels of the Swedish government as a disgraced staffer returns to her job to help the Minister of Justice get to the bottom of a conspiracy involving big business.The story of the co-founder of a nationalist party accused of racism, and how during election season his humanity slowly starts to alienate him from the cold and calculating demeanor of his spindoctors and co-workers, as he feels the party is turning into something else and becoming a heartless machinery.The story of the two children of a controversial right-wing politician, who, after their mother is killed by (presumably) extreme leftists, become involved with a far-right neo-nazi terror group, and how it impacts their relationship to each other.The boss beams - "they sound great! Let's do this!". "Uhh... which one?", the writer replies meekly. "Well, why not all of them?" "I... think maybe we should stick to..." "Nonsense! I have decided! Now go out there and make me a series with all of those elements!" The writer sighed and left the room, knowing full well the impossibility of the task before him.Blå Ögon has **so many good ideas** and it comes **so close** to realising their potential, but in the end it seemingly cannot keep up with the multitude of things going on, and the subplots never intertwine in any way whatsoever, thus leaving you with a sense that these three plots either were meant to be in entirely separate series, or that the final, brilliant plot twist that tied it all together got accidentally deleted during post-production. And it's a damn shame, because the potential is right there in front of you - you'll keep watching through the entire series eagerly waiting for the big reveal that will answer the questions that keep piling up. Why did that person die? Why is she helping him? Who was behind the attack? Why did he do that? etc. etc. and just as the plot is ramping up to the explosive finale... it ends. You're left sitting confused for a bit and then deeply disappointed in the inability of the writers to tie these otherwise excellently directed and acted scenarios together into a coherent plot. Another part where the writing struggles is with the characters. The actors do a masterful job and make them feel like real persons, but since the writing can't figure out how to do proper pacing, everybody ends up being immensely unlikeable - essentially, everyone in the entire series end up looking like either a bigot, a coward, an asshole, a turncoat or an idiot.I'm accustomed to disappointment when it comes to TV series, but this one hit extra hard as it had all the right ingredients - brilliant ideas, brilliant acting, brilliant directing - and still managed to accomplish absolutely nothing from them. I'd say don't watch this - not because it's bad, but because the sheer amount of wasted potential will sadden you to no end.

ED Smith By the end of episode 3a civil servant has apparently gone missing but her colleagues have chosen not to report this to the police, seemingly oblivious to the moral and legal consequences of not doing soa killer returns to the scene of his crime and covers a letterbox with his fingerprintsthe same killer walks into a hospital and finishes off his victim with a plastic bag. He doesn't bother to disguise his face as no Swedish hospitals have CCTV.I think I'll give this one a miss.

Tweekums Like many other Swedish dramas of recent years the rise of nationalism plays an important role in this multi-stranded drama series. In the opening episode a leading member of a prominent nationalist party is murdered and it isn't long before her daughter Sofia, believing her mother was killed by immigrants, is getting involved with the violent side of nationalism, dragging her unwilling brother, Simon, with her. Meanwhile Elin Hammer works at the ministry of Justice as Head of Staff; she is curious about what happened to her predecessor Sarah; she appears to have disappeared so Elin starts to investigate the matter. As the story progresses things get more dangerous; the group that Sofia has joined go from being merely very unpleasant to murderous and she is in the middle of it. Similarly people don't want Elin uncovering what happened to Sarah. At first the authorities have no idea who is behind a series of attacks but after their latest attack some are killed and the police are soon on the trail of the rest.This is a gripping thriller that fans of Scandi-Noir are sure to enjoy. The various plot threads are interesting and come together nicely towards the end. As one might expect it is fairly violent at times and some of the characters are distinctly unpleasant; most notably Mattias; the psychotic young thug that Sofia gets involved with. The cast does an impressive job; most notably Louise Peterhoff as Elin, Karin Franz Körlof as Sofia and Adam Lundgren who played Mattias. As the series comes to an end the scale of political corruption becomes apparent but several plot lines remain open; this is probably in anticipation of a hoped for second season but even if there aren't further episodes it was a satisfying ending that shows that not all bad people are brought to justice and some corruption will always be there. Overall I'd certainly recommend this to other fans of political thrillers and crime dramas.These comments are based on watching the series in Swedish with English subtitles.

Glenn Heusschen The Swedish Show Blue Eyes is an outstanding detective in a long line of successful Scandanavian thrillers, and has the same supreme mix between crime and politics as success-story "the Killing". Blue eyes, or Blå ögon follows Elin Hammer, the head of Staff at the ministry of Justice, who starts researching the disappearance of her predecessor Sarah. As a local politician is murdered, and Sarah remains no where to be found, the tension within the Swedish society increases after multiple attacks by terroristic group Veritas. Right from the start the show is clouded in a big political cover-up by which puzzles about the nature of it are slowly revealed to the audience. With multiple people being killed for the identity of the main secret, Blue Eyes is extremely exciting to watch from beginning to end. In addition, the amount of well-build characters within this over- arching story line is admirable. Even though the shows lacks some credibility here and there,the creators were able to create both sympathy and disgust for the people involved. The many inter- connected story-lines blend together to form a narrative which is both a very good "whodunnit", and a political drama which is scarily close to post-Paris reality. The only shame here is that there were only 10 episodes, which made the ending seem rather rushed. Overall, it must be said that with Blue Eyes, Scandanivia has found itself a new hit worthy of the same success as "the Killing".