User Reviews

I am a mono-lingual English speaker who enjoys watching mysteries filmed in other languages by using the English subtitles. But in this confusing mishmash, every time the language changes, the CC text that pops up to inform the viewer that the characters were now "speaking in a foreign language" obscured the very subtitles I needed to see in order to understand! Since these changes were fairly often--1) because the show included scenes in Finland as well as in Spain, and 2) because many scenes involved the Finnish community in Spain--this distraction occurred often enough to obliterate my possible comprehension!

Paratiisi is fun to watch. It is something as rare as a crimer series that feels contemporary. It is a trilingual series (Spanish, English, Finnish) with a lot of border crossing cooperation and people. The actors actually feel like normal people. Some will like that, others will not. Most of the series takes place in southern Spain, in the interplay between expat community and police in the city of Fuengirola.

The actual story is a rather unoriginal murder plot taking many turns. Not all the turns feel reaslitic and the end is not the best. The police investigators are far from superstars, even less than glamorous. There is also some added, seemingly redundant, storyline concerning dementia. Still the overall impression is Paratiisi is a solid 8x45 min piece crime series fitting well with the modern world.

I am English-speaking and I enjoy this program very much. However, many people are complaining about the Close Captioning, and that when Spanish/Finnish is spoken with CC on you cannot read the CC because a blurb comes on saying a foreign language is being spoken. Here's a suggestion: To manage the Close Captioning, use the CC button most remotes have. When English is spoken, tap CC to turn it on and the English CC will appear; when Finnish and/or Spanish is being spoken, quickly tap it to turn it off. Conversely, you can keep the CC off all the time if you can understand the English without Close Captioning. I have found, however, that CC even in English is handy to help decipher what is being said!

Great story line, acting & scenery. Surprise ending. Kept me engaged the entire time. Interesting having the 3 languages. Not hard to follow at all. Fell in love with the main characters after the 3rd episode. Is there a season 2, I hope so.

After having watched the Finnish/Spanish production "The Paradise" season 1 several years ago (also known as Paratiisi and Kosta), it was a pleasant surprise to see that a second season was available on Acorn. Season 2 is also set in Costa del Sol, which has a robust Finnish retirement community. As such, the series has influences from northern Europe, southern Europe, as well as nearby Africa. This creates an interesting cultural stew, between its varied criminals and the detectives who track them down.

While the focus of season 1 was middle-aged Finnish detective Hilkka Mantymaki, in the second season, she shares the spotlight with a younger detective, Luisa Salinas, who has fled the grind of Madrid for the greener pastures of Costa del Sol. The plot line, which involves the exploitation of African immigrants, was interesting.

I liked season 2, found the characters compelling, and raced through the eight episodes rather quickly. For me, the biggest drawback to the series occurred when the international characters were forced to speak English with one another. When that happened, the Finnish and Spanish accents could become quite dense and mumbling, and sometimes indecipherable. Worse, during English dialogue, all the close captioning would drop out, which was regrettable since at times I found myself straining to understand what was being said! But this was a minor problem; The Paradise, season two, is well worth the watch. While I gave it a 7, it is more like a 7.5.

Great actors, idealic scenery in Finland and spain, good story line. However, whoever did the English subtitles couldn't have been English! A lot of poor translation, typos & obvious errors. The continuity was also flawed in several places. Loved the idea of the storyline moving back and forth between 2 very different countries. The main characters were very well portrayed but, sadly, some of the other characters were less convincing, especially some of the non-speaking background people. Hopefully, the second series improves in these areas. I also hope there will be further exploration and revelations for the main characters.

I was so pleased to see this series back for a second season, which I have just finished watching. All the old characters were back and a completely new storyline.

Fortunately, I was watching a version subtitled into English for all three languages used. On the face of things, it seemed an odd combination to have Finland and Spain in the same series yet it worked. But the Costa del Sol is teeming with Finns - three Finnish friends of mine have holiday homes there. We got a glimpse into this community during the two seasons.

Both storylines hooked me in. This was a series to be consumed at a pace to find out what would happen next. And the tension was unbearable sometimes. We knew that one of the main characters was going to be shot at some point but the lead up to it was pretty unbearable. It's a huge cliffhanger, of course. So we are looking forward to season three. I can't wait.

Not bad Finnish-Spanish cooperation at all, with intertwining relations between several Finns and Spaniards... No fierce action and even the Spanish side is "calmer" than usual - evidently the Finnish influence :)

The script is also OK, I did not guess the wrongdoer, but the performances are not too memorable, I presume with B-grade performers as I am unable to recall any of the actors-actresses involved here from some other series. There are some excessive storylines and characters decelerating and confusing the general pace, but they are not annoying; the only thing I can consider annoying is listening to the English spoken by the Finns - their constant non-use of sibilants is so contrastive :)

But in general, as mentioned, rather good, definitely no waste of time.

Like many Finnish series, the basis for the story is very simple, but has been made overly complex and told in an incoherent manner. It's not only the language changes, the poor captioning or the terrible acting that makes this a huge fail, but also the bizarre editing that intersperses scenes in a random and disconnected manner. This compounds the confusion for the viewer and makes the series totally incomprehensible. The close interaction between the two lead characters is bizarre to say the least.

I hope there is a Season 2, We throughly enjoyed Season 1 and are looking forward to Finding out what happens to these interesting characters. How can we find out about its future?

Halfway through the second season episodes, starting with episode 4, the subtitles for both Spanish and Finnish disappeared so not speaking either language it makes it really hard to figure out what's happening in the show. I thought it was a problem on my end but my close captioning and subtitles were exactly as they always were before. I have the same issue while watching on my phone as well. Has anyone else come across this issue? I really like this show so I'm hoping this is only a temporary issue that will resolve itself in coming episodes. Great cast, good story and who knew there was an expat Finnish community in the Costa Del Sol region of spain?

I'm sure the treatment looked good in text. I'm sure such a story could develop in this way. I don't mind a slow pace.

But this isn't a well-told narrative, Riitta Havukainen is very stiff and surprisingly detached in highly dramatic situations and not that convincing at all. She somehow makes it sound as she's just remembered the lines and state them without much presence. There are a small handful of passing moments where she is convincing.

Her family members, Armi Toivanen and Risto Tuorila, both do a much better job. Of course, they are much less on screen. Fran Perea is convincing as Andrés Villanueva, most of the Spanish personalities act well in their limited part of the story.

The dialogue is certainly not the best, but it's OK. There are quite a few acts executed by different people where the drive behind them is very much absent for the narrative. Some developments are highly illogical. When the producers want to make emotional summaries of multiple lines of story developments, or when things heat up between two persons, they add some music meant to be suggestive of the mood and do cuts that look very amateurish and bland. Pretty weak stuff.

There's nothing mesmerizing about "Paratiisi". Except than the fact that there are quite a few Finnish people living in Spain I learned nothing of value. I don't want to learn of any of these characters again, except maybe Andrés or Henna.

I watched all episodes, but now I feel I'd be much better off if I hadn't. You have been warned. If you're not that fuzzy, you might like it. But I'm avoiding the director Marja Pyykkö from now on.

Magic! Briillant perspective on living in another country

Anyone who can tell me the music of the intro? All of the music is also great!

I love international mysteries and although I only speak English, the back and forth between three languages in this series did not bother me at all. The story line in the first two series also kept my interest. I did find the casting incredibly distracting though. I have no problem with younger men and older women but, realistically, handsome young men are not attracted to older woman who do not do anything to look and act, at least somewhat, younger- unless they are rich. Casting Riitta Havukainen as a love interest of Fran Perea is just not believable. Nor is she believable as an active police woman/ investigator as she clearly cannot even turn her neck properly. How can we believe she she is fit enough to be out in the field? She may be a very good actress but you cannot act your way into looking fit or as Peres's love interest.

The show would've been a lot more enjoyable if the English subtitles weren't so incredibly bad. Terrible grammar, really awkward phrasing and badly chosen vocabulary made them excruciating to read.

Story looks good, location looks beautiful but two captions are going at the same time, overlapped by captions dictating "...speaking in foreign language" or "soft music" obliterating the dialogue. Couldn't change this format thru setting on Roku or Prime. We just moved on. Too bad.

I completely agree with review entitled 'A Mixed Bag'. It was a good story but subtitles shld have been available for ALL the languages, not just for Finnish & Spanish.

Why? Well, as mentioned by previous reviewer, many of the actors have very heavy accents & flipped back and forth btwn languages throughout. For ex, in the same scene, a Spanish dialogue (w/subtitles) will change quickly to English (no subtitles) but w/heavy accents it's still hard to follow, thus frustration.

Aside from that, acting was fair but watchable. I will see how series 2 presents itself. Hopefully, someone paid attention to reviews & made changes.

First of all, this is a good mystery, suspenseful right up to the end. It's quite hard to follow as it often switches from Finnish, to Spanish, to English usually within a scene. Subtitles are provided when speaking is in Finnish or Spanish. But, there are no subtitles when English is spoken and accents are so pronounced it's impossible to understand what the characters are saying. Turning on closed captions just doesn't work as they block the subtitles. Lastly, the end is quite unsatisfying. I found myself totally unsympathetic to the lead Finnish character, hoping that she's overwhelmed with guilt.

Again, good mystery but not one I'd recommend.

Some plot twist , bit of romance between the main characters and some scenic beauty of Finland and Spain making it a weekend entertainer. If anyone likes to have a Friday night entertainment u can go for it !

Seemed interesting at first, but i am an American with a Panamanian mother, and know and understand english and Spanish languages perfectly, but halfway into this show I was screaming. ......The intro was Spanish spoken by Spaniards with all their "th," scattered throughout. They often spoke English with Spanish accents, then the show switches to Finland, where every one speaks Finnish. Everything OK, I , just followed the CC for the Finland section.

But then the Finnish detective arrives in Spain and it becomes a crazy mishmash of 3 languages with everyone speaking their own language, then criss crossing to the other country's language, with all their varied accents.

The male spanish detective gets along and understands the finnish detective because he was married to a finnish woman, but of course, he is now divorced. My God, just give me a detective with a simple alcoholic problem. Note, even with the cc it was crazy weird. The Spaniards spoke so fast, especially the main boss, that the cc couldn't keep up.

Reviewers actually complained about the show of the charming Paris cop, Inspector Dupin, in Brittany. Their complaint was that German actors all speaking German in a French country.

In the extras of the show Vienna Blood, the Austrian actors reported it was difficult to act all in English. Many knew English, but still found it challenging to take on a character speaking all in English. Obviously this was not a problem with these actors, directors, etc.

Just switch to Inspector Dupin and Vienna Blood and forget this mishmash.