H - Helena

Barcelona, 1960. Helena's husband is in jail and she needs money to get him a decent lawyer. She finds work with the gangster Malpica, a heroin importer and distributor. A drug turf war is underway and Malpica is quite ruthless, leaving a trail of dead bodies in his wake. The string of murders has the police interested and they have a team trying to identify the culprit. The police investigations and drug war also put Helena in the firing line. In her new world, Helena is known simply by her initial - Hache.

This TV series had the potential to be quite interesting, and at first glance seemed to be a combination of The Sopranos and Breaking Bad. However, it is soon apparent that this is nowhere near either of those two superb shows.

The plot is not that intriguing and largely seems to go sideways rather than forward. Very drawn out and padded, making for dull viewing.

Character engagement is limited. We should be empathetic towards Helena / Hache but while she's not a dislikeable character she is actually quite bland. There's no other characters worth supporting, except maybe the cop Vinuesa but he's also rather dull.

To top it off, production values are not that great. Colours seem drab, making the dull script even more lifeless. For a 2019 series there's none of the crispness and depth you'd expect from HD. It seemed so bad I thought I was watching it in 480 p resolution! Turned out it was 1,080...

Disappointing.