Detective Harjunpäa

I'm intrigued by two issues that keep repeating in this series. Almost as if the writers had a purpose in making this other than the just making a tv show show.

The first is that the police in Finland are grossly underpaid. There are constant references to senior police almost living in poverty, unable to look after their families.

There is also an obsession with the claim that junior offenders don't get punished there. In many scenes the offenders are arrested and lean back unaffected and say "it's ok I'm underage - I'll just get off with community service"

I felt like screaming at the tv "just record the conversation and play it to the judge!"

Many of the issues concerning the privates lives of the police are just bland and uninteresting as if they just felt the need to throws that in.

Disturbing police procedural portraying the dark and gritty underbelly of society. Very reminiscent of Silent Witness stories if you put aside the pathology aspect, the series has a focus on the motivations of the perpetrators and what drives them to commit their crimes. The novels the series is based on were mostly written in the 80's by a serving sergeant in the Helsinki violent crime unit providing fictionalised accounts of the cases he worked on.

Don't expect inspired deductive work from the detectives though, these are by the numbers police officers who spend most of their time grumbling about their working hours and failing to respond with urgency when given leads that could prevent further crimes.

There is so much lacking that I'm not sure where to start.

There is hardly any in-depth character development - at all.

Which seems to be both due to script as well as storyline as well as a lack of ability of the actors.

There is no real suspense buildup of any kind and you're kinda left scratching your head at what's "happening" - or not.

I honestly gave it a fair shot but was mostly left with a lot of question marks throughout every episode & generally underwhelmed.

I would call it amateuristic but an amateur series can still be good. This serie just shows a lack of talent imho and I wonder how no one was honest enough to tell the maker(s) during the proces.

It's not a format I like, that we see the murderers at the beginning of the episodes and then watch the supposed detective work to catch them. As this TV series is based on a series of crime novels, I assume that this is the system used in the books. In either medium, this would be a deficiency to me.

I can guess at why it was done this way. Both of the stories I watched (it's one story per two episodes) involved or less random crimes. It would be really hard for a viewer to guess at whodunnit. Agatha Christie this is not, it's more like Columbo which I also never took to.

I loved seeing parts of Helsinki that I know or have been to which is why I gave a three. But I just knew that I have better things lined up to watch which is why I deleted the lot.

Timo is the type of officer that the world needs more of not less. He's quiet, unassuming, and doesn't grandstand like so many "cops." Timo has a lovely family and a wife who understands her husband's role as a police officer. Too many series cast cop-wives as demanding and lacking understanding, jealous, and simply tedious. Timo's team is low-key as well. His female partner is unassuming and doesn't try to compete with other members of her team. The best part is Timo doesn't sleep with his partner like almost cops in every crime series. The pace is slow. No special effects. The episodes range from typical crimes to a couple bizarre ones. No flexing muscles. No macho nonsense. I look forward to Season 2.