Catharina_Sweden
This is good entertainment, providing that you realize that it IS a soap, with all the usual ingredients: impostors, crooked captains, psychopaths, children with the wrong paternity, evil twins, supernatural elements, characters with extreme personalities etc.. It is very skilfully done: I have watched all the 318 episodes over a period of about four months, without tiring. Every time I began to think: "it is time to take a break from this", they threw in some new element that rekindled my interest and curiosity!The criminality on board, by the way, unfortunately is not exaggerated. I read in the paper only the other day, that 25-30 heavy criminals travel with the Finland ferries every time, and that they are a potential risk to the crew and passengers.The worst with this series is the political correctness. Swedish Television is notorious for this: to try to "bring up" the Swedish people, according to the views about the right political correct opinions at the moment. This angered me very much! Some examples of this phenomenon are: every other sea captain and executive is a woman. In reality female captains (at least on ships of this tonnage) are almost unheard of, also in Sweden, and the female business executives on that level are also very fewlittle Christine is maltreated by her uncle and his wife, after they have become her guardians. But her other, homosexual, uncle and his boyfriend OF COURSE turn out to be perfect, loving, caring parents... And this was at a time when it was still illegal for homosexuals to adopt childrenlittle Christine is also a mulatto child...when illegal immigrants are found on board, the EVIL characters are those who want to turn them over to the police, while the GOOD characters protect them so that they can flee. This is of course absurd, as Sweden has a very big problem with all its immigrants and refugees, and it cannot go on like that. We cannot take care of more people who have not even got any refugee status, but who just want to come to Sweden to live off our welfare. And if the police are looking for them, the right thing is of course to hand them over to the policeMost actors are very good, but I want to mention Gösta Prüzelius and Gaby Stenberg especially. They are outstanding; they are doing their parts so well that it is almost impossible to believe that they are only acting, and that they ARE not the hard but always fair shipowner and his elegant, stylish in a timeless way, and art-loving upper class-wife, typical of her class. Another actress who stands out among the rest is Ewa Carlsson as Margareta. Especially in her first seasons aboard, she is extremely beautiful, charming and kind of "mystical". I cannot understand why she never made it internationally - she ought to have been one of our great exports of beautiful actresses, like Greta Garbo and Ingrid Bergman! I think "Margareta's" love affair with "Captain Lager" was the best of all this series. Very beautiful, commanding and passionate. But unfortunately, the script writers later on made Margareta into a more stupid and immature character, with a lot of silly love affairs and infatuations which destroyed the memory of Margareta-George a little... That was a pity.I must also say that I appreciated the fact that older women - in their 60:s and even 70:s - were shown as beautiful, stylish, attractive and desirable to men in this production. This is something that you very seldom see in movies - we are brought up to believe that love can only be between young people, or between an older man and a younger woman. Beatrice and Katarina are very good role-models for older women I think (no I do not mean Katarina's ruthlessness business-wise!), and they give middle-aged and older women something to hope and strive for!But the bottom-line must be that once you have got to know the characters, you do not care so much about the plots or action anymore. I felt that I would just have liked to BE there with all the dear characters, in my imagination... even if nothing spectacular would have happened anymore at all. THAT I think is the best credit a TV-series can receive! :-)
crobin-555-737304
Excellent for this wonderful actress Sara Key. It s a pity we don t see her any more. Productor and director have to engage her ! we can see her in some famous movies, especially Varuhuset, TV serial saw by many people. Actress of theater she still one of the best actress in Sweden. Remember her in "Don Juana"...incredible piece. You know her as an actress from TV-productions and from films as well as performing on the stage. For many the impact of serials like Varuhuset and Rederiet make them easy remember you, but as an actress the work as with Brustna Hjärtan and Strindbergsbarnet is what you hold as precious moments. I work mostly in Stockholm, Sweden, but also travel for interesting work and spend a part of the year in Europe.
Lojsan
Rederiet (The Shipping Company)is one of Swedens most popular soap-opera ever. It's always been a great script with lots of action, love and normal life and relationships. I think that especially the way many of the characters feels like normal but still interesting people is the base for why lots of people sat down every week for ten years and followed this series.The story is about all the crew at the ship Freja and the Dhalens-family that owns the company. Some of the most popular characters is Joker(Johannes Brost) the bartender, Uno (Hans Engström) the strange and funny guy and Tony (Kenneth Söderman) the directors son that is always in some problem.
JohanIII
A series about a shipping company named Dahlen´s. The story is located in Sweden and Finland and the sea between the countries. It´s focus is on the Dahlen family and the crew on the ship Freja. The characters are many and the plot can be about anything. It includes fights, arguments, love, drugs, crime etc. The company is ruled by the old man Reidar Dahlen who is very strict about the family traditions. It's a real longrunner and it's a well produced soap-opera.
