Beforeigners

I have watched the first 3 episodes and I am completely hooked. This is the best TV I have watched for ages: great production values, smart and funny dialogue and likeable characters. It defies easy categorisation as it is a show that makes significant political critiques while being laugh out loud funny, has the maddest story line ever while somehow managing not to be completely ridiculous and is full of truly emotional moments. It is a comic, sci fi, time travel inspired, cop drama with drugs and sex, vikings and bohemians. I can't believe I've just written that sentence AND given it 8 stars!!

This show is absolutely brilliant! It is wrongly categorized as "Drama/Sci-fi". It is deliriously hilarious! I dare you to watch it alone and not laugh out loud. The concept, acting, screenplay and cast are all brilliant. The rarest (and best) part of all is the originality of concept. This is HBO's first venture into Norway. For me, most HBO series are seriously lacking. Even the wildly popular "Game of Thrones" is loaded with gratuitous violence, sex, language, etc. I find this boring. Even their big budget series "Westworld" is highly un-original and inferior when compared to this small series. With the exception of HBO's 2016 TV Mini-series "The Night Of" (8 Episodes), this is the best show they have made in years; bar none. If you have not heard of Danish actress Krista Kosonen, you will soon; I promise. Besides several roles in smaller TV shows or films, she had a bit part in a huge one: Denis Villeneuve's "Blade Runner 2049" (2017). Now, she has a lead role in a brilliant HBO TV Mini-series (6 episodes). Go Vikings!!! I love it.

I want to emphasize that THIS series has a good plot but a BRILLIANT fictional world. Past, present and maybe future intertwined. Old vikings try to fit in with 2020s and 1900's British Edwardians - pubs with foreign letters, a 1900s dressed accordingly, riding a horse while wearing headphones. A tinder-social media just for the beforeigners. And have a look on the offficial HBO website, there is SO much in depth information on this world: Hoe to eat like a viking. How to curse 10000 years ago. ... and whatnot. The visuals are packed with hints on a complete, rich world... this is what I call, as a practicing production designer and set dresser: THIS is the art. This is the stage a plot stands on. This is the base for a damn good and intense story. I want more of this!

PS: Can't rate plot and acting this time, because I was too consumed with the worldbuilding.

Norwegian television and movies are very typically slow when it comes to dialogue and plot development. Not bad, but slow. Yes, we see it here as well, but this is much more American-ized than normal, and I mean that in a good way!

There hasn't been much that impresses me from an acting standpoint yet - but I do like the characters with what little build up they have gotten so far, and look forward to seeing them develop. I do place my money on Krista Kosonen to be the one to carry the show, and she does definitely bring entertainment value from the very first second. She is a prehistoric viking shieldmaiden now joining modern day police as she clearly was quick to adapt and rushed through the police academy. Then she is paired with a grumpy veteran police officer / single dad. I mean - what's not to like about that setup?!

I don't normally review titles this early, because it can truly go both ways from here - so take it with a grain of salt. But so far, the show delivers a weird and entertaining plot, clever and frequent tidbits of humor relating to old vs modern times, and solid acting. Let's hope it all holds up, and this could surely go down into history as Norway's finest - maybe even competing with "The Bridge" for the throne of Scandinavian television.

Edit: After completing all episodes of season 1, I stand by my rating, and can confirm an intriguing plot development and more depth to the characters in a well written way. There was also some side characters that struck an emotional chord with me, which is always welcome. Again, for Norwegian standards, it impresses. But I might say it is somewhat lacking in the storytelling aspect regarding the underlying "main mystery" that typically is supposed to carry the intrigue, and it can easily be forgotten between scenes of less overall importance. But then again, you rarely put on anything from Hollywood where the mystery ISN'T showed down your throat in episode one, so I find myself welcoming the change a little and enjoying interesting characters instead, which works great for this show if you ask me!

SEASON 1

Groups of people from three eras in the past are suddenly appearing in Oslo and elsewhere in the world. The appearance of the corpse of a woman, one of those "visitors", generates a complex police investigation.

Beforeigners cleverly and with abundant doses of biting, ironic and colorful humor face the problems that arise with these "visitors" who are being incorporated into Norwegian society. In this way, immigration, multiculturalism, sects, fundamentalisms, westernization, xenophobia (and the list goes on) are approached from a highly original approach and with a great deployment of "period" production.

But all this constitutes the social framework of the police investigation of the murder, carried out by a charismatic pair of detectives: Lars Haaland, a current Norwegian (Nicolai Cleve Broch) and Alfhildr Enginnsdóttir, an "updated" Viking (the Finnish Krista Kosonen). His private life and complex research, then, will necessarily interact with all those cultural sectors.

Beforeigners is then a successful hybrid of police, social comedy and fantasy.

SEASON 2

Summary

At times darker and more serious than season 1, however, at times, it recovers its characteristic sharp humor and self-confidence and continues to develop its original and satirical look at multiculturalism (the result of the presence of authentic Viking time travelers in the present), the personal story of its protagonist Viking detective (a sort of Scandinavian Tilda Swinton) and the science fiction tale that underlies and frames the series.

Review

A series of murders of women leads the Norwegian police to request the collaboration of the British police, represented by an Afro-descendant detective and an Orthodox Jewish detective, as the murderer is suspected of being an English time traveler.

This is just one of the tips of the new season of that original Norwegian police series. Added to that narrative line are the claims of Olav, a Viking time traveler (the Norwegian Tobias Santelmann) to gain access to the throne of Norway helped by a lesbian volva (Viking sorceress) (the Swedish Hedda Stiernstedt) and the adventures of the Viking detective Alfhildr Enginnsdóttir (the Finnish Krista Kosonen, a sort of Scandinavian Tilda Swinton), linked to her character as a time traveler, who assumes a clear portagonism in the series over that of her partner Detective Haaland (the Norwegian Nicolai Cleve Broch), very busy with his role as father. Regardless, the two continue to work together and make up one of the sexiest detective couples in recent years.

The series' original focus on multiculturalism then focuses on the Vikings, losing some of the variety it had in season 1. Fortunately, every time it runs the risk of becoming a linear tale on one of its narrative lines, stagnating or lose your way, the script invigorates the other subplots and adds new layers to all of them.

Although the commitment to the combination of genres is still valid, this season the tone becomes at times more serious and darker than in the first, although it does not take long to sow the journey with its characteristic ironic humor and self-confidence. On the other hand, it takes up and enhances its side of a science fiction story, in this sense providing a chapter of enormous power, almost a movie in itself.