''Rederiet'' (''High Seas'' or ''The Shipping Company'') was a (318 episodes) Swedish
soap opera
A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored ...
that aired on
Sveriges Television
Sveriges Television AB ("Sweden's Television Stock Company"), shortened to SVT (), is the Swedish national public television broadcaster, funded by a public service tax on personal income set by the Riksdag (national parliament). Prior to 2019 ...
between August 1992 and April 2002. The cast featured many popular and renowned Swedish actors.
The 45-minute episodes were broadcast weekly on Thursday nights on the
public-service channel
SVT1
SVT1 (SVT Ett; commonly referred to as Ettan) is the primary television station of the Swedish public service broadcaster Sveriges Television in Sweden.
History
Television in Sweden officially launched on 4 September 1956 with the launch of '' ...
and normally had between one and two million viewers. For ten years, ''Rederiet'' was the number-one rated show on Swedish television, along with the rival
TV4 show ''
Tre Kronor''. The competition for viewers can be compared to that between ''Dynasty'' and ''Dallas''.
''Rederiet'' also gained popularity in Finland on
Yle TV2
Yle TV2 ( fi, Yle TV Kaksi; sv, Yle TV Två) is a Finnish television channel owned and operated by Yle. TV2 was launched in 1965 as the successor to the former television channels TES-TV (Tesvisio) and Tamvisio, and broadcasts public servic ...
, and the show was a hit in Norway too on
TV2. The first season of the show was also sold to Egypt. The later seasons of the series were produced in collaboration with YLE, which led most notably to Finnish actor
Ã…ke Lindman
Åke Leonard Lindman (born Åke Leonard Järvinen; 11 January 1928 – 3 March 2009) was a Finnish director and actor.
In his youth Lindman was a football player, playing defence for the Finnish national team during the Olympics in Helsinki ...
appearing in the series. Rapper
Ken Ring also appeared as an extra in the show in 1996.
On
April Fools' Day
April Fools' Day or All Fools' Day is an annual custom on 1 April consisting of practical jokes and hoaxes. Jokesters often expose their actions by shouting "April Fools!" at the recipient. Mass media can be involved in these pranks, which may b ...
1993
SVT News announced that
Mel Gibson
Mel Columcille Gerard Gibson (born January 3, 1956) is an American actor, film director, and producer. He is best known for his action hero roles, particularly his breakout role as Max Rockatansky in the first three films of the post-apocal ...
was to play a lead role in the series. Gibson himself was interviewed and confirmed the information. It was later revealed that the whole event had been a joke.
Plot
The story is about a shipping company which conducts
cruiseferry traffic on the Baltic Sea between
Stockholm, Sweden and
Turku
Turku ( ; ; sv, Åbo, ) is a city and former capital on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River, in the region of Finland Proper (''Varsinais-Suomi'') and the former Turku and Pori Province (''Turun ja Porin lääni''; ...
, Finland. It takes place on board MS ''Freja'', the exterior of which was portrayed in the series by the Finnish registered
MS ''Birka Princess''. In the series the ship has different funnel colours from the ones in real life; in reality they were blue, yellow and red but in the series they were retouched to appear as different shades of blue. The show follows life on board the ship, mostly focusing on the crew and captain, but also on some of the passengers. The plot often involves love, breakups, accidents, deaths, murders, smuggling, theft, arson, rape, drugs, and insanity.
Another part of the story takes place on land, following the life of the
Dahléns, the family who owns and runs the shipping company. There are also rival companies who try to gain control over the company, which leads to a constant struggle for power.
Characters
Here is a list of the characters in Rederiet:
Impact on popular culture
On 1 April 2018, the Swedish ''
Star Trek
''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vario ...
'' fansite "
Star Trek databas
A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by its gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night, but their immense distances from Earth ...
" announced, as an
April Fool
April Fools' Day or All Fools' Day is an annual custom on 1 April consisting of practical jokes and hoaxes. Jokesters often expose their actions by shouting "April Fools!" at the recipient. Mass media can be involved in these pranks, which may b ...
, that
CBS had confirmed the series to be set in the same
primary fictional universe as ''Star Trek'', and that because of the major costs for a
space opera
Space opera is a subgenre of science fiction that emphasizes space warfare, with use of melodramatic, risk-taking space adventures, relationships, and chivalric romance. Set mainly or entirely in outer space, it features technological and soc ...
series, the setting was instead changed to a seafaring ship on
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surf ...
.
See also
*
List of Rederiet episodes
References
External links
*{{IMDb title, 0103523, Rederiet
1992 Swedish television series debuts
2002 Swedish television series endings
Baltic Sea in fiction
Swedish television soap operas