With Faroese-Danish crime drama ‘Trom’ recently showing on BBC Four in the UK, the first two episodes have received enthusiastic reviews in major media outlets there. The first and thus far only season of the six-episode series premiered on BBC Four on July 9th, airing on Saturday nights, two episodes at the time, set to end on July 23rd.
“Scandi noir comes to the Faroe Islands — and it’s beautiful,” declared the title of the Telegraph’s review, written by Judith Woods. “BBC Four’s new foreign drama, set against the backdrop of an animal rights debate, is bold, striking and something different.”
Expressing some criticism of the standard Nordic noir format, “visual vernacular — lowering skies, bleak grey hillsides, oppressive dark forests — that makes them meld into one,” the Telegraph noted: “The new six-parter Trom offers something new. It’s set on the beautiful, remote Faroe Islands, and Dear Viewers, it’s in Technicolor. At least by Scandi-TV standards. Vivid green grass, foaming white waterfalls plunging from glossy black rocks and so many hand-knitted sweaters it was surely deliberate product placement.”
Meanwhile the Financial Times ran a headline that read “Faroe Islands’ first TV drama supplies atmospheric Nordic noir,” with a subhead offering the following short description: “Sweeping aerial shots enliven a tale of kidnapping and high-level corruption now showing on the BBC.”
“The first TV drama from the Faroe Islands may sound like a proposition that could only tempt Nordic-noir completists,” the Financial Times review, written by Dan Einav, went on to say. “But anyone who relishes patient storytelling and striking cinematography will find plenty to enjoy in Trom, a six-part crime-cum-conspiracy thriller now showing on the BBC.”
“The title, for those of us who might need to brush up on our Faroese, can be translated as ‘edge’ and is pleasingly multivalent,” the Financial Times added. “Not only does it refer to the mountainous landscape of the North Atlantic archipelago, and its place on the fringes of the globe, but it also hints at the perilous situation its characters find themselves in after they unearth proof of corruption in the government, business and law enforcement of the country, which is part of Denmark.”
