Echoing what an earlier reviewer said about this, while it is in many ways wonderful television, ultimately I came away quite disappointed. The sheer length, requiring numerous plot twists of increasing ridiculousness and decreasing relevance, blunted the efforts of a fantastic cast and production team.
The standard of acting and direction were top drawer. The atmosphere, the characters, the relationships between them and their interactions were brilliantly drawn and executed. There were tons of compelling scenes. And the ending was satisfying and made sense.
Unlike, it has to be said, huge wodges of the intervening plot. It twists, it turns, it doubles back, it double bluffs, and most of it is just an enormous shaggy dog story. As time passes, you realise that a lot of the plot has a real bolted-on, ad-hoc feel, to the extent that you suspect they're making it up as they go along. The Holck interlude in particular, including Nanna working in the pick up joint was completely unbelievable and had that feel to it, yet it was the hinge that linked the murder and political sub-plots together.
I started to get that "Lost" feeling around episode 8, and by the time Lund was banged up for shooting Meyer, I started throwing things at the television. That whole section was utterly incredible. There's something particularly enraging when fully-formed, totally believable and brilliantly acted characters in a realistic milieu get saddled with duff plot which makes no sense. It undermines the painstakingly built-up realism which is the ultimate strength of this drama.
Too often, particularly towards the end, I was uncomfortably reminded, not of the Wire, Six Feet Under, Mad Men or the Sopranos - which it aspired to and sometimes matched - but sophomoric, high gloss, high concept crap like 24, CSI or Murder One.
Among the many loose ends and inexplicable actions which the reams of plot threw up, here's a selection (spoilers)
Why was Holck going to kidnap Lund? And why did he kill Olav? Why did the paedophile hold the old lady hostage? Why didn't Morten do a proper clean-up job? How come Troels got a taxi to the cottage, but the black car was seen outside? Why did Meyer not just name Vagn instead of talk about his sweatshirt? From what completely different universe did the suicide bid wander in from - it didn't make sense in terms of what had already happened and what happened subsequently and was beyond out of character. What and who exactly was Buchard protecting? Who was watching Sara and for God's sake, why? Was it really just to add to the atmosphere of paranoia? And how many sleaze-balls and nut jobs can one girl run across in a few months, in order to fill out the cast of potential suspects?
I hate to say all this because for the first 7 or so episodes, I managed to suspend my disbelief, and before the whole thing was overwhelmed by its own plot, it was fantastic.
The standard of acting and direction were top drawer. The atmosphere, the characters, the relationships between them and their interactions were brilliantly drawn and executed. There were tons of compelling scenes. And the ending was satisfying and made sense.
Unlike, it has to be said, huge wodges of the intervening plot. It twists, it turns, it doubles back, it double bluffs, and most of it is just an enormous shaggy dog story. As time passes, you realise that a lot of the plot has a real bolted-on, ad-hoc feel, to the extent that you suspect they're making it up as they go along. The Holck interlude in particular, including Nanna working in the pick up joint was completely unbelievable and had that feel to it, yet it was the hinge that linked the murder and political sub-plots together.
I started to get that "Lost" feeling around episode 8, and by the time Lund was banged up for shooting Meyer, I started throwing things at the television. That whole section was utterly incredible. There's something particularly enraging when fully-formed, totally believable and brilliantly acted characters in a realistic milieu get saddled with duff plot which makes no sense. It undermines the painstakingly built-up realism which is the ultimate strength of this drama.
Too often, particularly towards the end, I was uncomfortably reminded, not of the Wire, Six Feet Under, Mad Men or the Sopranos - which it aspired to and sometimes matched - but sophomoric, high gloss, high concept crap like 24, CSI or Murder One.
Among the many loose ends and inexplicable actions which the reams of plot threw up, here's a selection (spoilers)
Why was Holck going to kidnap Lund? And why did he kill Olav? Why did the paedophile hold the old lady hostage? Why didn't Morten do a proper clean-up job? How come Troels got a taxi to the cottage, but the black car was seen outside? Why did Meyer not just name Vagn instead of talk about his sweatshirt? From what completely different universe did the suicide bid wander in from - it didn't make sense in terms of what had already happened and what happened subsequently and was beyond out of character. What and who exactly was Buchard protecting? Who was watching Sara and for God's sake, why? Was it really just to add to the atmosphere of paranoia? And how many sleaze-balls and nut jobs can one girl run across in a few months, in order to fill out the cast of potential suspects?
I hate to say all this because for the first 7 or so episodes, I managed to suspend my disbelief, and before the whole thing was overwhelmed by its own plot, it was fantastic.