What’s it called?

Der Pass

What’s it about?

Initially, a gruesome murder whose victim is left posed in the snow in an Alpine pass on the border between Germany and Austria – with half the corpse in one country and half in the other. Now if that all sounds rather familiar you won’t be surprised to learn that this is a remake of The Bridge, the Swedish-Danish co-production which introduced the world to the character of Saga Noren (and the producers of Killing Eve to the talents of Danish actor Kim Bodnia, who played Noren’s first sidekick, Martin Rohde). Eagle-eyed readers will know too that there has also been an English-French remake called The Tunnel.

Who’s in it?

Acclaimed German film actress Julie Jentsch plays grounded and methodical German police officer Ellie Stocker while Nicholas Ofczarek is her Austrian counterpart, Gedeon Winter. He dresses like a down-at-heel Viennese impresario circa 1920 – scruffy double-breasted suit, fur-trimmed coat, lank hair etc. – and scoffs sugar lumps soaked with some kind of narcotic. Seedy doesn’t begin to describe him.

What’s so good about it?

As with The Bridge and The Tunnel, Der Pass throws together two unlikely (and at times unlikeable) characters and watches the sparks fly. Winter and Stocker aren’t quite up there with Noren and Rohde (or the Stephen Dillane/Clemence Poesy pairing of The Tunnel) but they’re still compulsively watchable. And if anything the makers of this Austro-German version have upped the gruesome ante where the baroque sequence of killings are concerned.

Fun fact …

The series is co-produced by Max Wiedemann and Quirin Berg, who won an Oscar for their 2006 film The Lives Of Others.

Where’s it available?

The eight-part series previously aired on Sky Atlantic and is released on DVD tomorrow via Acorn Media.

For fans of ...

The Bridge, The Tunnel, Ski Sunday.