I am beginning to think that I am approaching saturation point for dark Euro-based serial killer/police procedural programmes…For this one, while it has many fine points, there is not a vast amount that I can say about it that I have not said before about others and, of course, the more you see, the more certain dramatic and stylistic tropes become apparent and over-familiar. So for this one
‘tormented central character with personal and professional issues’ TICK, ‘colleagues with personal issues too and the beginnings of personal/professional friendship issues’ TICK, ‘killer with a literary/cultured theme and focus’ TICK, ‘gruesome results of said killings’ TICK, ‘grittily urban setting with much night-time film noir lighting’ TICK, ‘significant plot twist re killer’ TICK, etc etc
But ere were some fine aspects to this, not least the self-referential nature of aspects of the script with the similarity to Se7en acknowledged early on and the title sequence that owes much to David Fincher, with rapid, unclear scratchy images from the whole series which does have the advantage of giving a reason to watch this each time to see what new images are now familiar. But the soundtrack song for this was utterly dire; whiny and, in terms of words, self-pitying and generally annoying.
Still, the steady/relentless pace was good and it did assume a degree of intelligence from the viewer which is always welcome.