Countrygirl1017

This gritty crime drama is in the style of scandi noir and kept me engaged for the most part. There’s a good storyline with a complex plot of several layers, with a case of a man on trial for killing his wife and the prosecuting barrister being kidnapped, along with subplots. The actors are all very good - especially the main characters - Morck, Akram, Merritt, Rose, Moira and Hardy. It starts fairly slowly, as it builds the story and the characters, but these are well developed. The pace picks up once it gets going. It kept me engaged - I watched 3-4 episodes at a time as I was eager to know what happened next. Having said that, there were things I wasn’t so keen on. The scriptwriting could have been better - the dialogue wasn’t great some of the time. The characters are meant to be Scottish/British (apart from the Syrian Akram), yet often use American terms such as “I could care less” rather than ‘I couldn’t care less’ and a couple of other similar American phrases which sound odd when not spoken by Americans. I found it a little jarring. The most off-putting thing by far was that so many characters swore at each other using the f word repeatedly in a sentence and several times the c word. They were incredibly rude to their colleagues and friends and it just didn’t ring true. We all know people who swear a lot, and are rude in a joking way, but this was excessive and done by so many characters, making it unrealistic and distracting. In real life not many people are this rude or swear to this extent. I don’t mind a bit of swearing, but it was irritating and boring after a while and detracted from the story. Ironically, Akram, the Syrian character, spoke by far the best English and didn’t swear! His character was all the more likeable for it. I liked the contrast of his calm, authoritative manner against the more mercurial Morck. It wasn’t easy to like the main characters of Morck and Merritt at first as they were such miserable, rude people, despite there being reasons for it. Morck especially was ranting a lot to begin with which I found quite annoying and repetitive in the earlier episodes. However, the storyline keeps you entertained, but does stretch credulity a little at times and in the latter episodes there are some quite graphic, violent scenes. Overall, I did find it enjoyable, engaging and well made - apart from the gripes I outlined above! Of course others may not find these things irksome like I did. If the dialogue was tweaked a bit, I’d have given it 5 stars. Worth watching though.

It was overly long (they could easily have cut some of the flashback scenes) and wasn’t particularly engaging. The script lacked punch and some of the dialogue and acting was poor. The characters lacked depth, were clichéd and not that likeable, so as a viewer you didn’t particularly care what happened to them, which also meant there was a lack of tension. The plot line stretched credulity somewhat - in particular the main ‘baddie’ who was holding people hostage in order to steal from their bank accounts. I guessed fairly early on at least one or two of the twists too. It’s ok if you are looking for a fairly bland crime story, but certainly not edge of your seat stuff.

Absolutely awful and becomes more ludicrous with each episode. Terrible dialogue and the main character seems to be as naive as a 10 year old child. Series 2 stretches credulity to a ridiculous degree. Don’t bother.