Der Schwarm / The Swarm

Well, that was a waste of time. All sorts of broadcasting companies and film boards across Europe collaborated to pour money into making an 8-part series out of Frank Schätzing's wonderful book, "Der Schwarm", that was published in 2004. The book itself was a fascinating bit of science fiction that contained lots of real science, which made it believable. And scary.

The "ecological thriller" TV film series is a catastrophe. Frank Schätzing was part of the production team at the beginning, but pulled out because, as he put it in an interview with Die Zeit, "it 'pilchers' more than it 'swarms'". Rosamunde Pilcher is the British author of numerous romantic stories with happy ends. 

It starts out okay as we are getting introduced to the characters. Not brilliant, but some nice scenery and okay acting. It gets worse with every episode. They were released 3-3-2 episodes a week on German television ZDF and you asked yourself every week, did you really want to continue? We made it through the book about 20 years ago, so we will make it through the series.

The love stories are really distracting. The pseudo-scientific crap with fancy pipetting and microscopes and audio stuff and fancy computers made no sense at all, but hey, who knows what those science-y types are really doing in their labs. A few small glimpses of the grinding life in a biochemical lab are perhaps a tad realistic, but eureka discoveries don't happen like this.

The errors in the film and discontinuities are too numerous to name. I mean, on a scientific ship you don't change clothes every five minutes! And when your face gets cut with flying glass, it does not scar over in 15 minutes!

Enough said. It actually makes me angry, as the environmental dangers that we as humankind pose to the planet are REAL. I saw the shrinking glaciers with my own eyes this past summer. We have to stop misusing the resources of the planet and work towards a life that is sustainable for ALL of the people on earth. And for the creatures of the sea. 

We will probably have to suffer a second season, as the close of episode 8 was a highly improbably cliffhanger. I do not understand the critics loving this film. I found it a waste of time I could have better and more enjoyably spent cleaning out my office. And I hate cleaning.