This is a typical Norwegian production - average and not ridiculously bad, but has unnaturally written and -executed dialogues, single-geared slow pace and dark mood (here's Ibsen's realism for you) and very little talent and effort put into action scenes because entertainment is just for shallow productions, right? This could almost have been a theatre piece the way it was executed. It seems like they believe the more miserable the depiction, the higher quality and more praise from the critics. And yet it never really pulls you in as the scenes are rushed without a proper build-up, and they're trying to reach depth, intensity and tension by having the actors scream, shout and curse at each other without believable body language, which ironically makes the movie/series come off as shallow as these are seemingly the only ingredients within their repertoire. Pål Sverre Hagen is one of very few who's able to act more or less naturally. None of the other actors are bad, but they are stuck in the dominant Norwegian theatrical acting. Authentic acting is something Norwegian actors can learn from the British or American, or anywhere else outside of the Nordics really.
A lot of screen time was given to the family's miserable time back home, and I guess it's fair to include that aspect of war too, but it doesn't really help the story - it's too much. Just a lot more screaming and cursing. This is the opposite of elegant and emotional.
Why not include at least some build-up of the attacks, and show how the sailors handled this operationally? Was it a budget constraint, even though they had the highest budget of any Norwegian production to date? The viewer is offered no overview of how things really were, and even if this was done intentionally because we're supposed to get a feeling of how it was for each individual, it's not intriguing enough. Instead they are focusing on one young man screaming in agony for several minutes (he did an okay job given the writing) - this could have been a powerful scene, but it comes off as a cheap and lazy emotional trick. It wasn't exactly a Black Hawk Down-quality of a similar scene.
The real-life sailors were also robbed of acknowledgment and their promised compensation from the Norwegian government until decades later, which is one of the darker sides of Norway's WW2 history and one of the most important aspects in the aftermath of the war in Norway, but this was also hardly explored and described in this series. Comes off as a bit gutless and politically correct. Including PTSD among some of the characters after the war was important, but it's not like the series lacked of demonstrating the emotional tolls of war throughout the series anyway. One aspect that was balanced in a good way was that the Germans weren't shown as a bunch of evil people without any trace of empathy unlike many other WW2 dramas.
Overall this was a wasted opportunity that could have been far better with a different angle IMO - the brave and forgotten men (approx. 30 000 men and 200 women) that were the war sailors had deserved a better depiction of their efforts than this. But at least it's better than nothing, and kudos for giving it a shot.
