1) In the Troubled Man (the final Kenneth Branagh Wallander, which I saw for the first time this past weekend), the great detective solves his last case and retires from the force because his mind is going. He's been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's. He faces what could be a fearsome future. He will have his daughter, though, to take care of him, and he has a grandson who loves him. His future will be tough but not entirely bleak. Nothing more to keep track of here. Series over.
2) Westworld is becoming a bit like Lost in some ways, it seems to me. It keeps revealing unexpected zones and regions. Now we've been made aware of the India Raj-era world. As of today, I still need to see episode 4, the most recent one, though I'm not expecting it to answer any more questions than episodes 1-3 this year have. Still, I enjoy the show almost every week, and it always looks great. It's a luxurious puzzler. And I enjoy the challenge each week of trying to remember exactly where the previous week's episode left off with Thandie Newton's character and Jeffrey's Wright's and Ed Harris' and Evan Rachel Wood's. I really should watch this show with a specifically designed Westworld scorecard at hand. Lots to keep track of all the time, and you get the sense the show will only get more convoluted.
3) I saw season one of the Danish procedural The Eagle (which aired from 2004-2006) several summers ago when The Scandinavia House in Manhattan showed two episodes a week of the eight episode first season. That was on a movie-size screen. The series follows a newly formed international criminal investigative team operating out of Copenhagen. The team lead is a woman named Thea, played by excellent Danish actress Ghita Norby (who was in Lars von Trier's The Kingdom), and the Eagle is main investigator Hallgrimsson (Jen Albinus). It's a well-produced show that jumps around from Denmark to Norway to Sweden to Russia to other countries, and the criminals include biker gangs, former KGB agents, possible terrorists and other threatening characters. Sometimes the show flashes back to Iceland, where Hallgrimsson grew up and experienced a childhood trauma. What precisely that trauma was hasn't been made clear yet, though it's obvious that the Eagle has little affection for his Danish father. (His mother was Icelandic.) Anyhow, since years had passed since I saw the first season, I had to look through Wikipedia's list of season one episodes to catch myself up with what happened earlier before I could get into season two. To avoid that problem again, I'll probably jump right into season three when I'm done with season two. That's the smart thing to do at least. But who knows whether I'll do that, with so many good shows available?
4) I've been meaning for awhile to get to seasons 2 and 3 of Hinterland, since I did enjoy season one. It's a bleak show and uses the Welsh landscape to evoke mood beautifully. But again, I'd have to do a little work to reacquaint myself with where I was in the evolution of DCI Mathias. Each mystery he handles on the show stands alone, but there does seem to be an unfolding narrative about him and his mysterious past, which is gradually being revealed.
5) Gomorrah of course I'm waiting to hit Netflix, season 3, with all its characters and internecine wars going on...
I could go on. Just writing all this down is making me realize how much brain space I'm using to keep track of these various narratives. And I wonder why I can't remember things in my day to day life as well as I used to? It's not only age (and hopefully not incipient Alzheimers like Wallander has). It's all these damn shows I'm trying to stay up with.
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