The current fashion in TV investigative dramas is for slowly unfolding plots over which the detail of the investigators' lives are sprinkled, part embellishment, part subtle distraction. It's a formula, but it can work: see River, Broadchurch, True Detective (1), and many of the original Wallenders (forget the hammy Kenneth Branagh pretending to be grumpy and troubled when he's clearly enjoying the scenery and attention).
In this particular pretentiously titled Scandinavia Noir (a few more vowels wouldn't have hurt, would they?) the characters (excuse the pun) are all ridiculously two-dimensional, and the plot (such as it is) depends almost entirely on three major coincidences: 1, the central character female cop has an affair with a male character who later proves (as if we never saw it coming) to be a murderer, and who is himself murdered later in the season; 2, between these two events, this characters fathers a child by the female cop (so that her Swedish heart can break every time she looks upon the child and regrets her disloyalty and deceit; 3, her actual partner (the poor, deceived, cuckold) is himself also a suspect in yet another murder case (our heroine has a knack for picking murderers as lovers in the whole population of Sweden, or should that be the world?) And, of course, for added pathos, her partner never realises that his child is the offspring of another man, even when, after a single nosebleed, it turns out he is dying of leukemia as the plot line of all the various, baffling murders threatens to reach a crescendo. OTT? You could say that. Except the acting is so low-key and 'cool' that there's almost no build-up of pace at all.
So, lots of disconnected murders which, surprise surprise, all turn out to be connected after all. And, wouldn't you know it, the murderer is one of the police team (of four) that is investigating the cases. What are the odds? Even better than marrying/having an affair with a murderer (maybe two!) when you work in murder investigation, apparently.
Some nice photography and scenery, a cute rabbit, and some stunning apartments that I'd have thought would be out of the financial reach of the average homicide detective, cannot do much to raise the overall temperature of what is less a chilly drive in the snow-covered northern lands and more a decidedly lukewarm rehash of thriller cliches.
In this particular pretentiously titled Scandinavia Noir (a few more vowels wouldn't have hurt, would they?) the characters (excuse the pun) are all ridiculously two-dimensional, and the plot (such as it is) depends almost entirely on three major coincidences: 1, the central character female cop has an affair with a male character who later proves (as if we never saw it coming) to be a murderer, and who is himself murdered later in the season; 2, between these two events, this characters fathers a child by the female cop (so that her Swedish heart can break every time she looks upon the child and regrets her disloyalty and deceit; 3, her actual partner (the poor, deceived, cuckold) is himself also a suspect in yet another murder case (our heroine has a knack for picking murderers as lovers in the whole population of Sweden, or should that be the world?) And, of course, for added pathos, her partner never realises that his child is the offspring of another man, even when, after a single nosebleed, it turns out he is dying of leukemia as the plot line of all the various, baffling murders threatens to reach a crescendo. OTT? You could say that. Except the acting is so low-key and 'cool' that there's almost no build-up of pace at all.
So, lots of disconnected murders which, surprise surprise, all turn out to be connected after all. And, wouldn't you know it, the murderer is one of the police team (of four) that is investigating the cases. What are the odds? Even better than marrying/having an affair with a murderer (maybe two!) when you work in murder investigation, apparently.
Some nice photography and scenery, a cute rabbit, and some stunning apartments that I'd have thought would be out of the financial reach of the average homicide detective, cannot do much to raise the overall temperature of what is less a chilly drive in the snow-covered northern lands and more a decidedly lukewarm rehash of thriller cliches.