kmontgomery-98515

The acting is superb from everyone. Mikkel Boe Følsgaard, Mads Mikkelsen, and Alicia Vikander are all standouts.

However, I must knock stars for historical inaccuracy. With so much focus on the "affair" they skip over Struensee's actions. He dissolved the council and took advantage of a mentally ill man in the pursuit of social reform. All of that is lost by framing his imprisonment as mainly from the affair and his belief in reform is lost by him reversing the lifting of censorship. Not to mention they the ending more "noble" than it was. The film tries to make a story of power into a story of romance, but even with the great acting I could never forget the truth.

Overall I like the concept of the characters and think the acting is top quality, however parts of the show doesn't age well. Besides pregnant women drinking wine/smoking, the episode about the sex worker gets narrowly close to the virgin/madonna cliches I'm so sick of. It is a fun time capsule of technology, the characters explain how the Internet works a few times and are surrounded by non-smart phones. There's some good episodes and some weak episodes, but overall fine.

I disliked the romance between Lynley and Helen until they recasted the actress and I realized how much I preferred the first Helen - I truly bought that she was neurotic phycologist but the later Helen leans too much into "perfect woman" to make the ending of their relationship that much tragic. As much as I thought their dysfunctional relationship took up to much time, I did like the portrayal of Helen as extremely dysfunctional.

The best episodes are "Well Schooled in Murder" and "In the Presence of the Enemy".