Did anybody see Van Veeteren the other night? (International Mystery Series)
The episode was “Carambole.” We recorded it Sunday night, but when we watched it tonight we found that Sunday night’s storms had knocked out the satellite feed to our local provider for a half-hour. We saw the first 30 minutes, missed the next half-hour, and saw the remainder.
<<<< POSSIBLE SPOILER BELOW >>>>>
We were able to pretty much figure out what we missed, but…
Can someone tell us how Van Veeteren’s son figured into the blackmail scheme? Was he the key to the police beginning to unravel the mystery?
Thanks.
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I’m afraid the two of us may be the only ones watching this show; I don’t know anyone IRL that does. My memory may be a little fuzzy, but Van Veteren’s son wasn’t involved in the blackmail scheme. He was picking up the bag from bathroom as a favor to his crooked parole officer. However, the son was involved in some unsavory activity, apparently unknown to his wife as well as his father.
The International Mystery Series is sourced from MHz Worldview and distributed through a number of broadcast stations and cable networks listed on their website. I watch on KCSM, a second tier public television station in the Bay Area. KCSM doesn’t carry all of the MHz content, so you’ll need to check your local listings.
The great thing about the series is getting to see a classic genre interpreted by different cultures. They do a lot of Swedish shows, but I’ve also seen programs from Norway and Italy. The Swedish ones gave good insight into how the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series drew from the styles and traditions of Swedish mystery writing and films. In fact, some of the shows are produced by Yellow Bird, the same company that made the Girl films.
Some are better than others, but of all the “International Mystery” series my wife and I find ourselves preferring the Scandanavian ones the most, with Van Veeteren being the best of the bunch— most interesting character studies, well-written and believable stories with fewer “remarkable” coincidences than the others.
Within all of the various series, each episode is freestanding, but there is timeline continuity across episodes, and I’d strongly recommend watching them in their proper order. The Van Veeteren characters in particular have experiences and go through changes that persist from one episode to the next.
It’s quite interesting to see police mystery shows from a European perspective. Of course the Scandanavian shows reflect their cultures’ relaxed attitudes about nudity, and it’s surprising to see the amount of pixelation that’s sometimes necessary to make the programs safe for American consumption.
And it’s really interesting for this American viewer to see a Detective Mystery program that’s set in Venice, filmed on location in Venice, featuring Italian characters being played by German actors speaking German, with American English subtitles.
We saw a new one the other night (different series) also set in Venice as above, with Italian characters played by British actors speaking veddy British English.