Estonia (2023– ) User Reviews

Alright, dull half the time

[Dikinbaus · 6/10 · 26 November 2023]

I was 3 years old when this happened but I have been interested in the tragedy for a long time. So I instantly wanted to see this show with great expectations.

The show was quite decent. The scenes of the ship events were the most interesting part of this series.

I felt too much attention was given to the talking and bickering amongst the investigation team. I didnt care to know about the investigators private family life either.

I wanted to see more what happened to the ship itself and to the people in it. Yet they didnt even show how the ships visor got open, that would have made an interesting scene.

Decent show with problems

[prometheusjune · 7/10 · 24 February 2024]

I'm interested in the Estonia for as long as I can remember and when I first heard of a show about the Estonia being in development by the people who brought us 'Chernobyl' (2019), I was beyond excited. I was pretty bummed out by the mixed reactions after the show aired in some territories. Now that I've seen it myself, I get the criticism. Kind of.

Positives first: the show is beautifully shot. I'm usually not a fan of shaky cam but here it just works. We're always very close to the characters, which makes the scenes feel even more powerful and intimate. The soundtrack is amazing! Haunting even. The performances are also good. Also, the show has a high production value and especially the sinking scenes are intense and look impressive (honestly they gave me nightmares).

The problem is that the show is simply too long. The aftermath of the sinking and the inverstigation is stretched out way too much and when it comes to a close, it feels unsatisfying. The scattered way of storytelling and ths constant time jumps also stand in the way of real tension.

Ultimately, the show would have been better if it was maybe 2 episodes shorter. It's well made and at times very tense and emotional but it lacks a dramatic thread and a consistent pace. This is still a recommendation though. Now please release this show outside of Scandinavia for the world to see it! ;)

Better than expected

[monikaest · 21 October 2023]

As an estonian and being at this time of event very close to the tragedy, I say, I can't watch more than one episode at once - it brings back all those emotions, the pain which hunts me all my life since that happened.

It's really well done Estonian memorial if I can name it like that. It' s close to real with all emotions, the on-going political games around it and the sincere "why couldn't we help?" question.

The characters are believable, not overplayed as I expected - don't forget, we didn't know exactly what really happened, and had this "its gonna be alright " feeling quite long after.

For now I Ithink it is the closest to the truth the "Estonia" can get.

Respectful

[joness00 · 10/10 · 5 December 2023]

"Estonia" is one of the best "based on true story" tv series ever made. It's not done like action-thriller about ships sinking or like court-drama with monologues that try too hard to be epic. No, it's respectfully done story about devastating tragedy and that tragedy's influence on society. What's the most important for me, creators respected tragedy by not making speculations about it's causes or how it went down, respected victims and their families by not turning "Estonia" in action schlock and respected us - viewers - by giving multiple points of view on these events for us to better understand why events after the tragedy played out like they did in real life.

"Estonia" is a show about conscience, about world where nothing is simple, even though it should be. We can see how blame can be shifted in every direction, while almost everyone is set to avoid acceptance of it. At some point we can start wonder: "Does those theories (explosion, submarine, other ship, military etc) about ships sinking are concieved based on some real evidence or on the basis of some loud parties that wanted to shift blame elswhere, to redirect grieving people away from them by making up false stories and false enemies?" It is important to point out that series creators do not hit you over the head with moral, but it is in there, audience must be opened to see it, audience must listen to understand the messages series are trying to get across.

I admire how series creators handled themes of the series. I respect series creators for the job they done.

Actors and crew also did marvelous job!

If I had to say just a few words about these series, then I would say: "Estonia" is a superb tv series.

Boring AF...

[Duracelpupu · 5/10 · 4 December 2023]

"Too much talking and arguing for nothing."

Positives: Actors were ok. Cinematography ok. Production quite ok.

Negatives:

Too few information/story about what happened on Estonia before sinking, even though 137 people really survived. Most of the story is just random short survivor stories with no real value to anyone.

Sounds were bad, sometimes effects and/or music was so loud that you could not hear the dialogue.

This could have been 3 hour tight package (3-4 episodes), but now it was boring 8 episode/hour speaky-talky-marathon. Too much repetition on scenes.

Conclusion:

Do not waste your time on this, just watch some documentary if you are interested on Estonia disaster.

Understated yet effective

[centaureacyanus · 9/10 · 16 November 2023]

It's not easy to make a tv-series about a catastrophy with good taste today. The audience has short attention span and is used to overstimulation. Anything not predigested and sensationalized is quickly labelled boring. It's a series with eight episodes yet people complain when everything isn't clear and explained within the first 15 minutes. If you stop scrolling as you watch and concentrate a little bit the show offers a chilling and gripping account of the events. The scenes are atmospheric, understated yet effective. The characters and their reactions are believable and at times very touching. The series does a great job showing the disaster and it's aftermath from different perspectives. But if you are looking for quick answers and straightforward action scenes Estonia is definitely not for you.

Far too many fragmental narratives!

[ClaesW · 4/10 · 24 January 2024]

From a Swedish point of view, the sinking of M/S Estonia is the disaster that has caused the second most deaths in modern times. By far. It is only the tsunami in 2004 that has taken the lives of more Swedes. As is so often the case with this type of major events, there has been an aftermath with some conspiracy theory elements.

The event itself contains a lot of drama, and would therefore be grateful for a fictional depiction. However, this TV series manages this opportunity rather poorly. Much of the series focuses on the commission that was set up after the accident, which was supposed to investigate what the cause was. This is mixed with flashbacks from the actual course of the disaster.

The Commission is portrayed as a dysfunctional collection of people, to say the least, where not least the Swedish participants seem particularly unsympathetic and unprofessional. It's pretty much only the Finnish hero who behaves. Since the process is depicted so fragmentarily, it is difficult to get any context around the strange behavior that the characters exhibit.

The story is generally far too unfocused. There are many people involved whose story is told too briefly to get any understanding or any real commitment. This makes this basically very dramatic event in this fictional depiction quite boring.

Maybe they should have spiced it up a bit with a love story between a woman from first class and a man from third class. A scene where they stand in the bow and pretend to fly, to a ballad by Celine Dion might also have worked. But these ideas are perhaps already taken by someone else.

Brilliant first episode

[margustui-97016 · 10/10 · 21 October 2023]

Some of the first reviews here are rather negative but they are missing the point. Even if you're watching this as someone outside of the countries involved (Estonia, Finland, Sweden), it plays out as a mystery, which was how real life folded - no one had any idea what was going on and information was coming in from different mediums at random times. The show captured this perfectly and I hope the rest of the show is able to keep the pace up.

Based on the first episode alone, I think it's going to be just as good as Chernobyl (2019) was which was a solid 9/10.

Acting, visual effects and cinematography are on par with Hollywood productions, while keeping the Nordic aesthetic.

Beyond dull

[eicdenile · 1/10 · 16 October 2023]

If you're interested in what happened to Estonia, I will with all of my heart direct you to the documentary (from 2020) instead. The documentary was extremely exciting, had me on the edge of my seat and contained so much information and the music was incredible. The show had me almost sleeping, it was beyond dull as my title says and the acting was horrible. Or perhaps it was the directing. I've never had much faith in Swedish shows but I wanted to give this one a go, I wanted it to be thrilling because the real story WAS just that. It's obviously an awful tragedy but even that they've managed to diminish. The only thing they did well was almost sort of portray how difficult a rescue operation can be in the middle of the ocean, at night, in a storm.

Yes it's confusing and disjointed - but thats the point

[rileyjohnbrown · 9/10 · 27 April 2024]

This series was a respectful take on the events of the investigation. I think it is supposed to be confusing and jumping all over the place - because that is what happened in the aftermath of the disaster. Different countries, sources and media outlets were all publishing contradictions of one another, at random times and yet the families and survivors were no closer to the answers they needed.

This series perfectly summed up the sentiment of the time. If you were confused, that is the point ! Because the families were just as confused at the time.

The cinematography of the sinking scenes were great.

Very confusing

[TeresaMariaM · 2/10 · 15 October 2023]

Based on the first episode (I hope it gets better) I really don't understand the plot.

If you are not estonian or swedish and don't remember the events surrounding the catastrophe in '94 - it would be almost impossible to understand what is happening.

At the beginning we are shown little snippets from a night on the ship and understand something happened (water on cardeck and people rushing up the stairs). And then with a blink of an eye there is a helicopter flying to the site and rescue mission in full motion.

And then the political power plays begin, but all the characters are not introduced properly so it's very difficult to keep track of who is who.

Unendurable bureaucratic soap opera

[framersqool · 2/10 · 27 November 2023]

It's hard to imagine how this complete muddle could have been made less informative, revealing or even interesting to try and get through. Apparently the decision was made (probably by the same typically European means of committees around tables where no one ever says what they mean because no one is sure who's really in charge) to make most of the 'story' about an extremely dull and irritating process of follow-up enquiry among representatives of the various nations involved.

The Swedes want to blame the Estonian crew (or something), the Finns want to blame the Russians (or something), the Germans want to blame the Finns (or something), and no one is even interested in hearing from the Estonians other than to cross-examine the one surviving crew member in very bad English by insinuating that he must have sunk the ship by having a crush on a girl in the galley (or something.)

I managed to wait out four episodes and part of the fifth, giving as much benefit of the doubt as I could, to assume that at some point we might start being shown something to do with a ship and why it sank.

But I think it was when one (Finnish? Who cares, by that point?) bureaucrat was arguing with another, three years later, in some courtyard outside yet another ugly building about leaks to the Germans (or something), and couldn't make himself heard over the other man's repulsive coughing fit having nothing at all to do with anything, that I realized there is no there, there: this confusing and meandering mess is not going to arrive at any story worth telling, if it hasn't already, more than four episodes in.

It came as no revelation to me that European bureaucrats are primarily engaged in international blameshifting and denials of their own accountability, which is all that is on display as this fractured and badly-edited script proceeds. So aside from that, I could not even tell what story it was this overly long insult to the victims and survivors of the actual shipwreck (which this is barely even about) was meant to tell us.

If you really must throw away several hours of your time being bored and confused and irritated by a story that isn't one and which leaves you less informed than you started out being, go ahead and sit through this. I guess there must be somebody out there who finds this sort of passive-aggressive Eurocratic soap operas interesting, but I'm not one of them.

Disaster-series

[pinkfreud-97261 · 1/10 · 8 December 2023]

8 episodes of nonsense. Seriously?! Could have been 4 episodes at best. Too much personal drama. Only in the last episode a little bit of truth comes to light, if you can read between the lines. Everybody who read and saw other documentaries about this disaster / attack knows what probably happened. Nevertheless, this series is covering up a lot of other possible scenario's . It's an insult to survivors and family-members. Don't waste youe time! Nothing much more to say., just finishing up 100 more characters so i can add this review for you guys to read. Hopefully better series will make up for this waste of time.

What a waste

[FadeRunner2049 · 3/10 · 1 January 2024]

It absolutely baffles me how you can take a topic as interesting as this and make it so boring. It might even take some sort of anti-talent to achieve that.

8 episodes and nothing really happens. The first episodes are average, but at least you get the feeling that it might all come together at the end. This isn't the case at all. There are no interesting storylines, the central mystery is somehow dull (again, how?), no real personal struggle, no tension, no nothing. Just one uncharismatic guy being mopy, looking at papers and then being mopy again.

If you have to decide between doing nothing and watching this series, then doing nothing is surely more interesting.