I had thought that a Scandinavian series about Scandinavian mythology would have had their sources better. Every episode opens with what is supposed to be an encyclopaedia quote. There you have things like: “Tyr is the God of war, he lost his hand in battle”. Right. And why would you give the ‘pater familias’ of the giants, the name of a son of Odin (Vidar)?
But, there are also elements that are somewhat amusing when you know the myths.
A mother and her two sons move back to the small town where the father of the family passed away. The village has the unimaginable name “Edda”. The small town is largely dependent on a rich family with a metal factory, which -as you soon learn- is led by giants.
One of the adolescent sons, “Magne” soon develops ‘superpowers’. There is a suggestion that he is in some way a God. His brother amusingly develops genderbending traits which easily connects him to another Norse God. Other funny details are the way in which the bloodbrothership between Odin and Loki takes place and a tapeworm that grows out to be the Midgard serpent.
On and off, Magne takes and leaves the role of being a God and with or without a team he sets out after the giants. Allegiances change, there is the usual adolescent (overdone) drama, whiny kids and often fairly shallow use of the myths. There are some contemporary themes woven into the story, such as environmental problems.
The series are not all bad, but they are certainly not great either. Especially the final episode is very poor.
