It’s hard, especially with the messy process that TV is made out of, to pin down the right compilations of things that make or break a TV show or at least put it in a place that makes it different in a medium filled with similar shows or even shows that are considered low in the vague spectrum of fine arts, and even some still consider TV as  whole as a low form of art unlike theater or cinema for example. But that idea is changing rapidly as the medium itself changes and takes more of a cinematic approach in either a visual and stylistic sense or a well written literary storytelling sense. Mad Men, The Wire, Breaking Bad, Rectify, The Leftovers, Fargo… Etc all are a fine example of that, some more than others. But for The Bridge, like Breaking Bad, it took a pretty tired, beaten and usually mediocre genre which is crime thriller, the thriller genre for some reason is now being over used especially in TV (think of all the CSI shows!) and especially the crime genre, and elevate it to more than what that genre is. For example, BoJack Horseman did it to the genre of animation comedy shows. How did you do that? Simply, with the power of absolutely undeniable brilliant writing and a different approach to the elements of storytelling. When you have the right elements lined up that of course helps too, but for me, first comes the writing. In The Bridge and aside from it having the right elements like the great cast and stylistic visuals and the right balance between the thrilling fast pace that’s essential for a crime thriller and the European cinematic and dramatic slow pace, it has a writing element that makes the storytelling different and more interesting than any other crime thriller I’ve ever saw. For example, just think of the brilliant storytelling choice that The Fall did to refresh the old serial killer story which was revealing who the serial killer is from the start and putting that mystery to bed without using it cheaply to make things more thrilling, but if you use that then comes the question “what’s left to do?” For The Fall in this case it got the classic struggle of the chase between what considered good (the detective) and bad (the serial killer) (for more examples of this struggle check out the relationship between every superhero and every villain, most notably Batman and The joker where they each reach a point of identifying with each other’s inner struggle that they kind of realize there’s little to no difference between what they both are and  trying to do) and that element played out perfectly for the show, and it gave us an interesting insight into the struggles and inner demons to what we mostly consider a demon. Build more empathy, not oversimplify things to just good and bad and nothing in between. It’s kind of a new postmodern approach toward nearly everything especially literary but more to TV. The element that The Bridge used is close to that same approach. Apart from its main characters, each season the show introduces a new set of interesting characters without really revealing how important those characters are or how they relate to the story, and none of the time these mysterious seemingly unrelated characters have on the show i wanted to skip. Not once. I don’t know how this show does it and i kind of don’t want to know. I’m enjoying the ride. And more importantly it always has paid off. Those characters always have a purpose no matter how small, and they always relate to the story in the most brilliant of ways. This helps you have a big scope of the world the show is set in and have more empathy and understanding of their motives if they ever were revealed to be “the bad guys” and the brilliant thing is you get to understand their world and the other small characters that have a part in those “bad guys” characters’ lives and how that affect them. It’s a hell of a tool of storytelling to grasp the massiveness of this world and all its chaos. And the show does it without losing a beat in the lives of its main characters. Those storytelling choices are what make TV a different medium than any other because choosing them might be easy but in the TV world when you do most of the time you need to stick with them for as long as your show is running, and that where the brilliance writing comes and shows itself as many different storytelling tools. It’s one of the most important elements that sets a show from other shows, among many other chaotic things.