Harjunpää

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.