After the determined police detective Cattani fell in the line of duty like so many police officers and magistrates who were not bending to the Italian Mafia and even more sinister powers above it, the Italians simply imposed the series producers to keep on the saga. For me, the fourth series will always be the best - and it's last sequence is forever engraved in my memory.
It was only this week-end I had the opportunity to watch the DVD release of the fifth series, and it was a surprise. For the first time, a magistrate uses international cooperation to get her hands on bigger fish than the southern Italian mafiosi. Long establishing shots, and even a couple of dialogues are conducted in outdoors scenarios with Manhattan and New York City as backgrounds, with particular emphasis on the Statue of Liberty, and the Twin Towers.
Episode 1 is «The American Operation» with good results for the law, but the power of the Mafia, and the Cupola above it soon re-start devastating the police force and even the criminals who, for family reasons, are wishing to cooperate with the law. Thus, episode 2 «The Evasion» shows how weak a prison is for a big criminal; episode 3 «The Ambush» is a bloody affair, and just one of several ambushes this particular series has, in the eternal cat-and-mouse game of law and crime; episode 4 «Kidnapped», has again a policeman's family used as bait to trap, and destroy him.
Only this time, the producers wanted to compensate a public of millions of viewers, and pampered them with a happy end, when (episode 5) «The Bomb» carefully prepared and planted in a busy railway station goes off - but in a way it does not provoke the carnage we have been reading about in real life newspapers. For once, the realistic series ends with a woman judge hugging the courageous cop and his young son - and they are alive.
At least until the next series, for to deal with organized crime and political corruption in Italy, and the world at large (the USA, Luxembourg, and unnamed African countries are exposed), we know that script writers don't have much space for optimism.
It was only this week-end I had the opportunity to watch the DVD release of the fifth series, and it was a surprise. For the first time, a magistrate uses international cooperation to get her hands on bigger fish than the southern Italian mafiosi. Long establishing shots, and even a couple of dialogues are conducted in outdoors scenarios with Manhattan and New York City as backgrounds, with particular emphasis on the Statue of Liberty, and the Twin Towers.
Episode 1 is «The American Operation» with good results for the law, but the power of the Mafia, and the Cupola above it soon re-start devastating the police force and even the criminals who, for family reasons, are wishing to cooperate with the law. Thus, episode 2 «The Evasion» shows how weak a prison is for a big criminal; episode 3 «The Ambush» is a bloody affair, and just one of several ambushes this particular series has, in the eternal cat-and-mouse game of law and crime; episode 4 «Kidnapped», has again a policeman's family used as bait to trap, and destroy him.
Only this time, the producers wanted to compensate a public of millions of viewers, and pampered them with a happy end, when (episode 5) «The Bomb» carefully prepared and planted in a busy railway station goes off - but in a way it does not provoke the carnage we have been reading about in real life newspapers. For once, the realistic series ends with a woman judge hugging the courageous cop and his young son - and they are alive.
At least until the next series, for to deal with organized crime and political corruption in Italy, and the world at large (the USA, Luxembourg, and unnamed African countries are exposed), we know that script writers don't have much space for optimism.