Julkalender 1996 - Mysteriet på Greveholm

Mysteriet på Greveholm (The Mystery at Greveholm) from 1996 is probably the most beloved of SVT's julkalendrar. It is also the only one who has got a sequel (Grevens återkomst from 2012). In my personal opinion, that one is as bad as the original one was good, so this entry will only be about that.

"Är det redan vinter? Det var ju sommar nyss! Vart har hösten tagit vägen? Tänk, snart är det vår!" ("Is it winter already? It was summer just the other day! Where have the autumn gone? Soon it is spring!")

 ~ Leif

I have come to realise that describe the plots to my favourite julkalendrar might make them seem pretty strange. Sunes Jul seems probably pretty uncomplicated with Sune and his family celebrating christmas, but the rest. Tomtemaskinen tells the story about an old man building a mechanical Santa Claus to his cat and Jul i Kapernaum is about a star trapped by a king underneath a town and two children going down to free it.

Mysteriet på Greveholm is no exception to this. It is about the Olsson family with a father who is a scientist and who has managed to move a satellite so no one can watch TV. They move into a castle called Greveholm to celebrate christmas. In the castle live the two ghosts Jean and Staffan. An evil skeleton of Greven von Dy (the earl von Dy - usually called Greven) has captured a princess from outer space called Dioda in the tower and the children (Lillan, Ivar and Melitta) has to save her. Dioda also has a robot called Sprak who Lillan plays with. There is also two thieves who want to steal the treasures of the castle, a news paper delivery boy called Måns who Melitta falls in love with and Santa Claus and his elves.

I love this julkalender very much, but I still cannot help thinking it to be somewhat overrated. There are rather lot of plot holes and the acting is not always very good. In fact the acting (mostly by the children) is better in both Sunes Jul and Jul i Kapernaum than in Mysteriet på Greveholm. What is redeeming is the interesting world it creates and the loveable characters that you can relate to. This is actually what makes this julkalender work and not its sequel.



Pictures borrowed from here.