Gone, but not forgotten – VG

“Therese, the girl who disappeared”

Norwegian police reality in five episodes

Premiere on NRK 1 Sunday, November 8 at 9:45 p.m., all episodes will be released on NRK TV on Sunday, November 8.

Regi: Thale Percentage

With: Inger-Lise Johannessen, Håkon Grøttland, John B. Ottersen and others.

Images of the girl with the big brown eyes and the two missing front teeth, Therese Johannessen, aged nine, have lived in the consciousness of adult Norwegians for more than a quarter of a century. Since she disappeared from the Fjell residential area in Drammen in July 1988.

The disappearance has never been solved and the case is now obsolete. But it has not been in the resources. The “Therese case” must be one of the longest and most expensive homicide investigations ever conducted in Norway.

Unsolved true crime series: when Therese Johannessen disappeared

The reality crime genre has never disappeared, but it gained renewed relevance around the same time that the podcast made its entry into the media offering, and Netflix discovered the great commercial value of making television with old crime stories, solved as without. resolve (2015’s “Making A Murderer” was a breakthrough).

The Norwegian TV producers were quick and learned the design language fast and well. “Gåden Orderud” (2018) set the tone, and since then there have been many similar series.

It has been a long time since viewers lost hope that these series solve something. We don’t even expect them to provide crucial new information, yet we do see them. Even despite the fact that the design language – the images from the drones, the slow panning of seized objects, and the technical evidence – is beginning to seriously wear out. And that they are always, always too long.

“Therese the Missing Girl” fits in with tradition, but is placed on the top shelf of its genre. Partly because many feel close to the cause. But also because the series contains a lot of good material on what must be said to be Scandinavia’s most bizarre crime and court scandal in recent times – the Thomas Quick case (s).

Film review «Quick»: the Social Democrats’ own «serial killer»

Episodes three and four are practically a documentary documentary, and in all they constitute a solid review of the history of the Swedish “mass murderer”. This story is just as fascinating out loud every time, and the producers behind “Therese, the Girl Who Disappeared” have spoken with many of the more important survivors involved (though not Quick himself, who only appears in archival footage. ).

In general, it seems that most people are very willing to line up on shows like this, even when critically focused on them. In “Therese, the Girl Who Disappeared”, it is of course Therese’s mother, Inger-Lise Johannessen, who makes the biggest impression. Especially when she in the last episode knows the smell of her missing son with a hat who has been in police custody for 32 years.

But many are not only ready, they can also speak. Yes, “Therese the Missing Girl” shows us that in 2020 “ordinary people” speak better on television effortlessly than professional presenters 32 years ago.

Police investigator Håkon Grøttland is absolutely central (he still believes Quick is responsible for abducting the boy), as is his colleague John Ottersen. Former Fjell Housing Association Leader Nils Stablum is a find of the rare – give this man his own talk show soon!

But “everyone” poses and gives an excellent account of themselves: people from the police and judicial system in Norway and Sweden, Therese’s childhood friends, old neighbors. The exceptions are Therese’s father, Jesus, and a sister, Elena. They did not want to participate.

The series loses a bit of momentum in the fifth episode, after Quick has been reviewed, the police group of “unsolved cases” gave up and more rogue actors entered the scene (“psychics” and so on). “Therese, the girl who disappeared” could have been much more strict, without losing anything significant.

But a bit of straw is the rule rather than the exception in this type of series (and series in general) today. Reality crime enthusiasts will want to keep up until the very end.

The critic has seen the entire series.