4 out of 5

Developed By: Meredith Stiehm, Elwood Reid

Covers season 1

It is the sum of its parts and not always what’s on screen.  ‘The Bridge’ is a remake of a Swedish show of the same name (except, y’know, in Swedish) which ran for two seasons.  It appears that we’re going to trail off into unique US territory with season 2, which might be preferred, since all of the elements seeding those threads are more interesting than the core murder mystery that overtakes the latter third of the season and is swiped from the original.  The titular bridge is The Bridge of the Americas that is a border crossing between El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua.  The first episode is a little rough – because it belongs mainly to that murder mystery – but it puts our pieces into play well enough, when a body is discovered right on border line of the bridge between American and Mexico.  On our side, Diane Kruger’s Sonya Cross arrives to deal with matters, and is immediately at odds with Demián Bichir’s Marco Ruiz, of Mexico, who isn’t quite the stickler for policy and procedure that Cross is.  An uneasy partnership is formed as we gloss over the rules regulating who gets priority on the case and why these departments are working in concert.  …Which is fine – I’m glad the series didn’t feel the need to continually justify the partnership as they could make up anything semi-legit sounding and we’d buy it; the departments would already understand the reasons, so why voice them at length?  It’s an easy sidestep to over-writing that shows seemingly forget, assuming that audiences will always want and need a reason.  But if it’s not truly necessary as part of the show, then you can just state your point boldly and move on and we’ll probably be okay.  Demanding as we are, we audiences are also easily led astray if there’s enough distraction.

Which there is.  Though the initial troubled partnership setup and the character ‘extras’ – Cross is probably autistic, and has problems voicing/understanding/expressing emotions, and Ruiz is embroiled in the double-dealings of Mexican law – seem like typical TV nonsense, once our pilot episode establishes the setup and suggests a political motive to the killing that would promise more oddities for some episodes to come, ‘The Bridge’ slows down and starts to revel in some truly refined character building and scene setting.  While things certainly happen from episode to episode, it doesn’t settle into a formula… until the mystery must be resolved and we start to turn into a silly cat and mouse with ridiculous cliffhangers… but prior to that the world is weird and rich, with several lightly related storylines being mostly well-balanced and dealing with life on both sides of the border (and crossing back and forth) with fascinating variations, all without preaching too much about what should or shouldn’t be done, rather studying the intense cultural divide that exists just miles away.

So the initial killing that started things off turns out to be for a specific reason and blah blah blah mastermind killer orchestrating ridiculous turns of events.  It’s well acted and well shot, it just feels like a regular television ‘keep us watching’ ploy than the more wandering, odder stuff on the fringes.  But I’m hopeful for season 2 and I think the creators are as well – instead of ending the season with the resolution to the mystery, it’s wrapped up with two episodes left, giving the viewer proof in the final two that the writers will be capable of forming their own Bridge world.  It’ll still be a gamble to see how it turns out, but I’m leaving season one with some faith, whereas some shows you just tune in with a ‘show me what you got’ mentality, not really looking forward to viewing so much as passively leaving the TV on.  I do think ‘The Bridge’ is something special.  They have an amazing cast that managed to balance their roles with humanity – on paper, I can see how a one sentence summary would lend itself to caricatures and not actual human beings – and the ruminating theme song and dusky colors all give the series a unique and grounded feel, similar to how ‘The Americans’ fluffed itself out into something more than one could expect from a brief description.  Kruger is excellent at not over-selling her character’s affliction, and her father figure / lieutenant Hank Wade – played by Ted Levine – is perfect at bringing both authority and caring to what, again, could’ve been a simple no-nonsense chief role.  But especially notable is Matthew Lillard.  He’s cast as his stereotyped quirky character – an asshole reporter with a drug and drinking problem – but he’s shown in the past he has some drama chops, and the trials and tribulations his character goes through on the show allow him to display a wealth of emotions and subtleties that amazed and affected me.

What the hell did the TV landscape look like twenty years ago when we had 22 episode seasons and budgets that didn’t match movies?  Oh right, it looked like MacGyver and Quantum Leap and it was equally as awesome.  Thanks for reminding me.