Harjunpää

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.

Very depressing series with depresses characters. Helsinki need a PR team to counter balance this show. Each two part crime is seedy with unlikeable characters and a team of police who generally stumble upon DNA or an eyewitness to solve the crime. So many other cop shows do it better.such as Thin Blue Line from Sweden.

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.

The family matters and stuff outside the actual cases are pretty ordinary Finnish stuff; nothing too fancy or shiny but exactly as you'd imagine things to be. The cases themselves aren't too special either, maybe slightly over the top when it comes to local crime culture. Not saying these things don't happen here but let's say these aren't that common in regular police work in Finland.

Overall looks and feels like a Finnish police show; a bit of a low-key ordinary police work, but clearly not aimed for worldwide audience. That must have been an afterthought. Subtitles lose a lot in translation but they're still passable.

The original TV show based on the books was filed in the eighties and it also was a depiction of that day's policework.

A bleak portrayal of Helsinki. The series evolve around the crimes of Finlands capitol and the empathetic homicide detective Timo Harjunpää who tries very hard not to take the darkness he encounters while at work, back home to his family. The series come off to a slow start but the characters slowly get under your skin. Although I can understand that some might find the stories of the Helsinki crimes boring and unimaginative, in my belief they are realistic and a well-made portrayal of the sometimes tedious and strenuous day-to-day work of a homicide squad under pressure. Yes, it lacks sensational plot twists and bombastic action, but it gains in depth over time. Just like in the real world, you got to give it time to get to know someone. I give the first half of season 1 a solid 6, the second half a well deserved 7.