Rikos

Sarah Lund and her inexhaustible collection of horrible, wooly Scandinavian sweaters as unifying links in a series about the twenty-day investigation into the murder of a high-school girl from Copenhagen. A case where nothing is as it seems; and no, owls play no part here, despite the fact that many (wrongly) mention Twin Peaks in connection with this series. Season one (yes, and the standalone, ten episode season two) puts its money on “differentness" and almost shyness in their procedures that were typical for series ten years ago. This is more a political and human drama working with (both the characters’ and the viewers’) feelings than a standard crime series. One of its peculiarities lies in the fact that all the action is shown exclusively from the point of view of four characters. Detective Sarah Lund (investigation and sacrifice of her personal life; don’t expect a tough girl with a gun, she’s more of a “Wallander"), a politician on his way up, Troels Hartmann (political tricks and intrigue before the coming mayor elections; to begin with strikingly similar to the Palmer storyline in season one of 24 and later State of Play) and the parents of the murdered girl, the Birk Larsons (impact on family, coming to terms with tragedy, reaction of those around them, thirst for revenge). Which in the end means that nine out of ten events fundamental for the story take place off screen. This is most evident in the crime storyline, where the investigation gets almost no space; Sarah’s partner does all the work: he finds, interrogates, catches, but we see nothing of this, but just find out from Sarah talking on the phone. Paradoxically, the crime part will probably be the greatest stumbling block of the series. Knowing that it has twenty episodes of unbroken story, it is clear from the first moment that subplots for two or three episodes in the style of “other suspects who did it beyond a doubt" lead nowhere. The creators take too long revealing what the viewer has known for a long time; because, from the very start, half of every episode is about politics, city hall and elections, then it’s no surprise that in the end the investigations turn its focus to that. In the same way, it is no problem to guess the murderer, and I had the feeling that after the final revelation a lot of aspects remained where, looking back, logic was lacking... Despite all these complaints, I do not hesitate in calling this one of the most interesting addition to the new-wave serial old-school crime dramas. (07.02.2012)

Borgenov-like behind the scenes plotting enriched by the thriller and crime movie frame (or is it vice versa?) so target-oriented and escalated. And on top of that, wearing a shabby washed-in Nordic sweater... Yes, Sarah is back. The first season diluted the unprecedented and stimulating personal approach by stretching the season into twenty episodes with repetitive sub episodes, while the second season is more dynamic, has less episodes, greater filmmaking and the approach of "everything should be more tense and everything must be bigger". As a result it lost its unique concept and thus became an exciting and high-quality, but somewhat overplayed genre variation of other movies. However, the third season takes the best from the two previous ones and at the same time it did its homework and avoids their drawbacks. Thus it is far the best, the most dynamic and the most exciting. This is largely due to the fact that only in the third season the consistent adherence to the trio of story lines (criminal, political and personal) has finally worked. In previous seasons, their interconnection has not always worked, but this time they appear hand in hand as one integral whole. (15.02.2015)