Nine Eleven in Germany (spoilers)

[angie]

Hi everybody![/b]
I am new here and want to say hello.

I watched 9/11 on German TV tonight and just had to surf in the Internet to find out more about Cracker and Robbie Coltrane etc.

[glow=red,2,300]It was absolutely brillant and I didn't want it to end. Fitz/Robbie was at his usual fantastic self.[/glow]

From next week on they're repeating some older episodes which I shall watch, of course.

The only thing which I regret is that I can't watch it in English, although I think that German synchronisation isn't too bad.

Anyway, I shall pop in here from time to time to hear from other Cracker-Fans and would love to hear from you.

Love,
Angie

[Admin]

Hi Angie - thanks for posting. Glad you enjoyed 'Nine Eleven' - starting to seem like everywhere except the UK and the US has now seen it!

[angie]

Hi Sarah,

it used to be the other way round. We were lucky in Germany when we got to see a good series or special after 1 or 2 years.
But I am not complaining ;D

When is usually a "busy" time to look in here?

Love,
Angie

[Lars]

Hi!

I also just want to share my thoughts about "Nine Eleven" after I have watched my DVD recording of the German broadcast yesterday:

Well, I'm still not entirely sure, what to think about it. While it was really a pleasure to see Coltrane and Fitz return, in the end I couldn't help but feel somewhat disappointed.

Where to begin?

I think that all scenes with Fitz and his family worked great. It's nice to see that all of them have lived their lives and evolved.
The best Fitz moment of the whole special in my opinion was the dialogue between him and Judith whether they still love each other while he is searching for "Viagra" on the Internet. It's also good to see that Judith is in some way having more control over Fitz. She sets the rules after they decided to go gambling in the Casino. All of this is great stuff and a showcase for realistic screenwriting of a late marriage.

The acting was on a very high level in general, with Coltrane and Barbara Flynn being my favorites. Anthony Flanagan as Kenny was good also and did the best with his part (more on this later).

I didn't warm up to the new team around Fitz, DI Walters was annoyingly incompetent (strangely in the German dubbing they used the same voice for him than they had eleven years ago for Christopher Eccleston's Bilborough), the younger male (I don't remember his name) pale in comparison to Jimmy Beck and DS Saleh had nothing to do (and was definitely no Panhandle).
One scene of a bit humour was Fitz explaining to them in the toilet how men choose which to use. But we had much better and more sophisticated scenes similar to this in the three earlier series.

To my own surprise, I quite liked the new filming style of "Nine Eleven". While the photography, editing, soundtrack and the new flashy main and end titles were very modern, I think it suited well. In the last ten years the world has changed (due to that terrible day in September 2001), Fitz has changed, the taste of regular audience has changed (e.g. "CSI", which I like very much) and filming techniques have changed.
The only thing that bothered me was the use of digital cameras which I still think gives everyting an artificial look. This worked well in Michael Mann's "Collateral", but not in the world of Fitz.

There were three elements of "Nine Eleven" that I really regard as problems and all of them relate to the story:

First, I just didn't buy Kenny's motivation to kill Americans!
As usual, I tend to agree with McGovern's political views, and I did so with his statements in "Nine Eleven", but I wasn't convinced that Kenny would kill Americans because of his traumatic experiences in Northern Ireland ("American money bought the weapons") and the fact that 9/11 drew the attention of the world from other conflicts.
Comparing "Nine Eleven" to "To Be A Somebody" I can't help but think, although Robert Carlyle's Albie did such horrific things (and I truly hated him for murdering Bilborough), at least I could understand why he did it, and the fact that his motivation was so realistic made it much more disturbing and frightening.
I can imagine two variations that could have made "Nine Eleven" more convincing: Kenny's motivation could have been solely based on the Norhern Ireland conflict and he could have been murdering Irish people, or alternatively Kenny could have been fighting as a British soldier in Iraq with traumatic experiences and felt betrayed that the American and British government lied about the reasons of the war (no weapons of mass destruction found, faking of secret service reports etc.) and therefore he was killing Americans.
The connection of Northern Ireland and 9/11 just did not work for me.

Second, although "Nine Eleven" has two sequences of great suspense (Kenny's second victim, and he being in the Hotel room with the first victim's mother), the film as a whole wasn't very suspensful at all. And the story itself was very predictable to me, especially the ending with Fitz and Kenny at Kenny's home.
In my opinion there was too much politics and too less thriller drama. McGovern had found a much better balance in "To Be A Somebody" (still my personal favourite).

And finally, I quite missed Fitz' brilliance in solving the case!
Admittedly, the interrogation scene between him and Kenny was good, but Fitz didn't solve the case this way, but only by three major coincidences:
Of course, it had to be the car in which Fitz was driven, that had to intercept the wallet thief, and of course it had to be Kenny in pursuit of him, so that the thief could phone the department later to state that he even knows the murderer's profession. And - of course again - Fitz had to enter the department with the first victim's mother at the same time than Kenny so that he could try to avoid them and Fitz sees it.
This was just too much accidents for my taste!
These story elements were very symptomatic for "Nine Eleven" in general, because McGovern obviously had problems himself to let Fitz draw conclusions on the murderer's motivation as this motivation wasn't plausible enough.

In the end, "Nine Eleven" was a solid thriller drama (better than most shows on current TV schedule), but only a very average "Cracker" story with too much political ranting and too less thriller.
I still like Fitz and Judith very much and want to see more of them and their relationship.
And therefore hope, that Fitz returns, hopefully with a better story - again written by McGovern, who just knows best how to characterize Fitz and his family.

Greetings, Lars!

[Olaf]

Saw my DVD recording of "Nine Eleven" yesterday - after watching several old Cracker episodes on German Pay TV ("Premiere" broadcasted ALL of the Series 1+2).

I was good to see Fitz again. The best moments for me were those of Fitz together with his family, to see how the characters and their relationship to each other had developed (his son looks quite handsome with a decent haircut! ).

I agree that the story is not completely convincing. The link between the North Ireland trauma and 9-11 was not obvious (at least for me, being German). Also the police people left a pale impression, none of them compares to Beck or Penhaligon.

On the positive side we have a very good villain (as usually - the better the vaillain, the better the movie, that's why we all love "To Be A Somebody") and Fitz as good as ever. I also liked the digital look - it mirrors the fact that Fitz returns to an England that appears somehow strange to him.