Official ratings for e2: 721k. Using the same "overnight/official" ratio for e2 as for e1 results in:

The table so far:
e1 561k overnight, 640k official.
e2: (630k overnight estimate), 721k official
e3:

Nice to see it going up! (Sorry, Straker, would you like sauce with your fedora! )

K

I would imagine that the fact that the character and actress are Swedish has something to do with the fact that the show is a co-production between RAI and the Swedish network Sveriges Television

If you have access to Alibi channel Bergerac is shown at 8am every morning

I think it depends often on how the scene is shot. Quite often when there is dialogue between two characters, it is shot "over the shoulder" of one person so that all you see is the person doing the talking. Then they switch the angle when that other person replies so you do not have both people in the shot at the same time. However from what I remember a lot of the scenes do have both of them in shot together.

According to the usual sources of IMDB and Wikipedia, Katharina Bohm was born in Lugano so it's by no means impossible that she speaks Italian. Her IMDB profile also lists some other TV work in Italian series, at least 2 in the 1990s, it seems odd that she would be cast if she does not speak Italian.


It's certainly worth a visit but was one of the few places where I have decided to take the fully comprehensive car insurance that most car rental companies try to flog to you by mentioning the stupendously large deductible. 9 times out of 10 we ignore the scare tactics but in Sicily we decided it might be sensible... It was certainly interesting driving. Once you realise that it's just anarchy then you're fine!
We arrived in Catania when it was dark and had a devil of a time finding the right route to get to our hotel. After driving around for at least half an hour and going in circles several times, we found the correct exit road. The reason we had missed it was because the signpost was in brown and had no lighting and it was next to invisible in the dark unless you knew exactly where and when to look...

We visited Ragusa which features in a lot of the location shots and it was a very atmospheric place. We went in October, out of season, but it was still pleasant enough in terms of weather and I would definitely go back again.

Great figures! I had wondered if it would drop between eps 1 and 2 as so many people around here don't seem to like it.

According to these she was born in Swizterland of Austrian descent

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharina_B%C3%B6hm

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0127041/

BBC4 celebrates it's 10th birthday on Friday(according to my BBC4 weekly newsletter)

Mr Klein says:-
Channel Controller Richard Klein says: "It is an honour and a delight to be looking after BBC Four on its 10th birthday and I can think of no better way to celebrate this than with mirror balls, platform shoes and the Bee Gees. Blow-dried hair is optional."

I'll be raising a glass(or two) to celebrate the anniversary. Please feel free to do likewise.

glad you like it, when it popped into my silly head I just had to share.....

Not seen the last ep yet but will try and catch up before this weekend.

Instead of MentalBaldo how about calling him MentalBaldy??

MB it is then

MentalBaldy doesn't quite have the Italian ring to it somehow. Verencio

Since Lugano is in the Swiss Canton of Ticino which is the Italian speaking part, it seemed to be not impossible to me that she speaks Italian if she spent more than a few years there when growing up. Wikipedia claims Lugano to be the largest Italian speaking City outside Italy.

She may just have been born there and have brought up in Austria

Even if she did grow up in Switzerland and learnt to speak Italian it would have been Swiss Italian which is a bit different to regular Italian

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Italian

I am wondering whether we are losing a lot in translation eg Livia, Fazio

Right or wrong, I assumed that Fazio knew what had happened due to a mafia connectiopn hinted at previously. ideas??

Loving the views of sicily. a trip to his house please!

A Sicilian policeman with connections to the Mafia???

No S**t Sherlock!!!

I've been a lazy arse today but still didn't get around to watching MB part 3

Nearly time for Mentalbaldo! Tonight's ep looks intriguing from what I've read of the previews. Still quite an old one - from 2000.

Seeing Catarella sitting outside Mentalbaldo's hospital gave me a flashback to when Svartman always used to get that job

Oh yes, that's right. They even risked letting him loose at the beginning, and bringing him to that house where the old mafia guy was. He asked IM what he's supposed to do.

What rank is Mimi meant to be? A bit of office politics between him and IM tonight.

Finally caught up with the episode with the female musician and the chickens. Here are a few thoughts, apologies if they have already been covered. Two hours is far too long without a single break, had expected two one hour shows, really glad it was recorded and I could pause it.

Apart from that I liked it, but beneth the exotic Italian exterior it's not really that good is it? How old was it FFS? Would I be right in thinking there is extended female nudity in every episode, even if it's just ogling a corpse? And he's a maverick whos in trouble with his boss, does it his own way and has relationship difficulties? Where have we heard that before?

Wrong person gets violently killed and labelled a killer. Real killed identified, conveniently blows own brains out avoiding need for messy trial and explantion about killing innocent disabled man. Too neat.

These episodes are about 12 years old at the moment. Only 2 to 3 were made per year so soon we might get some that look more up to date. It doesn't particularly bother me though (although Fazio's 90s leather jacket was a bit amusing); I still enjoy old eps of things like Morse from the 90s.

There does seem to be some nudity in each ep but no more so than in something contemporary like Homeland, which comes across as a lot more crass IMO.

This show isn't to everyone's taste and it does follow a lot of crime drama conventions, but I've got to like it by now - it has grown on me. It seems to be attracting a loyal following going by Twitter and elsewhere.

Did they run out of plot?
The last five minutes was a bit "Mills and Boon."
In detective dramas I find only elements of "will they? won't they?" of any interest. Once they have, for me there's little point of spending time on a domestic situation which has little to do with the plots.

I wonder where they got the wood for the doors of the cave? It looked in remarkable condition if it'd been there since the 1940s. You can't get a wooden window frame to last ten years these days.

Must have been a duff load of ammunition if he only took one bullet from an automatic at about 20 yards.

My wife was watching something else in another room while this was on, she came in to speak to me so I turned the sound down a bit. When She went out again I turned the sound up as "I couldn't hear what they were saying!"
strange that, as I don't speak Italian.

But anyway, an otherwise entertaining episode.

I'm assuming that Mentalbaldo and Mimi used to be the same rank and then MB did something that got him promoted over Mimi which is maybe why Mimi seems to have a problem with him.

According to this article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Il_commissario_Montalbano

MB is a Commissario and Mimi is a Vice Commissario

The article also states that some episodes are combined from more than one Mentalbaldo short story which seems to be the case with last night as the business with the guns and the business with the two bodies had no connection with each other.

I've grown to enjoy it. Some of the almost "Police Acadamy" type of humour still annoys me, Catarella (?) appears to be the equivalent of a village idiot, would even the Sicilian police be that desperate ? I also find the continuing, will they, won't they, romance a bit tiresome. Didn't he propose a few episodes ago ? Get together and stop mooning around for heavens sake !
But I do like the way they expand on the characters, bringing in the headmaster, and the mother of his childhood friend (the pimp with a heart who was killed in last night's episode ?)..you don't get that in CSI.
I also liked the way it touched on the wartime history of the Island, the general politics of the island and the internal politics of the police etc. There were even a few little jibes at the media and celebrity culture this week.
But mostly I love his little house, right on the beach, and want to go live there.

Highlights for me were seeing Catarello "tooled up" at the start and the conversation with the old lady schoolteacher (dunno why, but it just put a huge grin on my face!).

K