The Bridge releases the first scene from series three online

It’s fitting that the 600th post on this site features one of the best of the contemporary Scandinavian crime dramas, certainly one my personal favourites… The Bridge (or Broen if you will). With the third series immiment (in Sweden and Denmark, at least), PR and marketing activity has ramped up significantly over the past few weeks. We’ve had trailers, AMAs with Hans Rosenfeldt and now this… the release of the opening scene of the third series.

The 10 Best Crime Dramas This Week (Monday 31st August – Sunday 6th September)

I write this on a Bank Holiday Monday. A really wet and miserable Bank Holiday Monday at the end of an August that has been pretty rubbish weather-wise. This means only one thing – might as well sit in front of the telly and watch loads of crime drama, which, thankfully, shows no sign of abating. There’s a big new American series this week, as well as lots more goodies. Look out for this week’s radio highlights, too – there’s lots of Agatha Christie and a new three-part drama.

Review: Agatha Christie’s Partners In Crime (S1 E6/6), Sunday 30th August, BBC1

(C) Endor Productions – Photographer: Laurence Cendrowicz

Tommy and Tuppence have made little progress with their investigations into a missing weapons scientist – their main suspect has been killed, and now a note has arrived threatening atomic devastation. So is the mysterious ‘N’ actually one of the guests in the Sans Souci hotel?

Review: Ripper Street (S3 E5/8), Friday 28th August, BBC1

(C) Tiger Aspect 2014 – Photographer: Bernard Walsh

Susan having shot Reid and killed Capshaw to cover her own crimes, she now nurses Reid who hovers between life and death as Whitechapel goes to hell. We always had the feeling that Reid would at some stage get written out of the series, so with his daughter now saved, we were a bit surprised that news of his death seems to have been exaggerated.

Interview: Amanda Redman, The Trials Of Jimmy Rose

Photographer: Ben Blackall 

Amanda Redman is one of our most consistent and best-known actresses, and she’s certainly no stranger to crime drama after starring in New Tricks for so long. But in ITV’s new three-part drama The Trials Of Jimmy Rose, which starts this Sunday (30th August), she plays a very different role – the wife of an armed robber who’s getting out of prison for the umpteenth time. Here’s what Amanda has to say about it all…

Interview: Ray Winstone, The Trials Of Jimmy Rose

Photographer: Ben Blackall 

This Sunday (30th August), UK viewers will be treated to a new three part series that stars the great Ray Winstone and Amanda Redman – the first time the pair have appeared onscreen together since the cult 2000 film Sexy Beast. It tells the story of an armed robber who has spent more time in prison than he hasn’t. He’s about to get out from his latest stretch and return to his wife Jackie and their luxury home. But while he thinks it’s just business as usual, Jackie and his kids have moved on, and it’s a battle for Jimmy to fit back in. Here’s what Ray had to say about it all…

BBC4 confirms The Bridge, Arne Dahl to return this autumn; Beck to air for the first time

There has been much activity up in Edinburgh at the annual TV festival during these past few days but even though the likes of Martin Freeman and Armando Iannucci were giving good seminar, I’ve had my eye on one man and one man only – BBC4 Contoller, Cassian Harrison. I’ve known for the past few weeks that he would announce the transmission date of series three of The Bridge in Edinburgh but was unable to say much about it. Until now. We’re in for a hell of a Scandinavian autumn.

Review: Hannibal (S3 E12/13), Wednesday 26th August, Sky Living

Though Will Graham’s family have escaped death at the hands of the Red Dragon, the deranged killer is still a threat, all the more because he has become the pawn of an even greater force, Hannibal; Francis Dolarhyde has become Hannibal’s ‘agency in the world’. With Hannibal unwilling to reveal what he knows of Dolarhyde – was he in fact Hannibal’s patient? – Will has no choice but to turn to DuMaurier for some insight into Hannibal’s mind. DuMaurier is rather smug in her assertion that Hannibal won’t kill her, unless he can eat her – and he can’t do that from a cell. But we all know that he could escape any time he wanted to.

Review: Witnesses (S1 E6/6), Wednesday 26th August, Channel 4

Within the blink of an eye, this excellent French series found itself at its conclusion – five episodes of fast-moving, multi-layered police procedural with two intriguing characters at its heart had left me breathless, and desperate to find out who was behind the murders of four men. There was lots to tie up and not a lot of time to do it in, but like the rest of the episodes before it this sixth episode didn’t pause for breath in revealing everything. In episode five we had already established that this was a three-layered crime story. On the top layer was Kaz Gorbier the psychopath who had been tormenting Paul Maisonneuve and trying to avenge Maisonneuve’s perceived role in breaking up his family; on the second was Laura, who had been digging up dead bodies and rearranging them in show homes in the Le Tréport area to send Maisonneuve a message; and the third unknown person, who had actually murdered the four exhumed men in the first place. What started off as a macabre set-up involving those carefully arranged cadavers in show homes quickly unpeeled layer upon layer until it made my head spin. We were introduced to another layer of the story at the end of the last episode: the digger-uppers had left Maisonneuve another clue – the press clipping that detailed the suicide of a young woman who the detective had admitted was his first love. So who was she? And how would this all end?

Hans Rosenfeldt AMA highlights: Definitely no Martin Rohde, open to more series, new English-subtitle trailer

It really feels like the third series of The Bridge – Broen III – is around the corner, if only because the PR activity has really ramped up. We’ve had images, trailers and now, on Saturday, showrunner Hans Rosenfeldt took to Facebook to hold an AMA with fans of the show. As ever with these things there was some wheat and some chaff, but after the jump I’ve tried to select the best questions and answers.