Anyone else watching this (only available for Europeans, I guess)?
I love the premise - in our age, people from the past (actually, three specific periods in the past: the Stone Age, the Viking Age, and the 1800s) suddenly start arriving in the water in significant numbers. Fast forward ~18 years and we see a society that has been transformed by the need to integrate large numbers of “Beefs”.
The protagonists are a divorced, drug-addicted veteran cop whose wife ran off with a gentlemanly Beforeigner from the 18th century (who has quite different ideas of how to bring up his new stepdaughter) and a viking shieldmaiden who made it through the police academy and is the first police officer with a “multi-temporal background”. The story starts with them investigating the murder of a beforeigner woman - politically explosive, because it’s suspected to be a hate crime.
In many ways, it’s a totally cliche cop-show so far, but the premise and world-building are quite fun (though perhaps you need to be familiar with modern Norwegian culture to get all of the references/jokes). The setting is basically, what-if mass immigration, but with people from another time instead of Syria - and it allows the show to poke at serious issues without being offensive to or misrepresenting a real group of people.
Don’t know how far they’ll go with that, but the build up of the mystery in the first two episodes (of 6) has been interesting, so I’m probably along for the ride.
Heh - I suspect the full frontal (cave)man nudity may also be a showstopper for the US - wonder how they’ll deal with that, if they bring it to the US market.
But yeah - using people from a (supposedly) more homogeneous past to stand-in for the conflicts of today only works if the past doesn’t contain unresolved conflicts of a similar/worse nature.
Also, the police solving confrontations using words/fists will probably seem weird/unbelievable to many, but it’s actually accurate; Norwegian police don’t carry firearms (except in times of heightened security) - just pepperspray and baton. I live here, and even I found the scenes “weird” to watch, due to being used to non-Norwegian shows.
Episode 3 definitely piqued my interest further - introduces an interesting new character and deepens and evolves the central crime case. I have no idea where they’re going to go with this at present.
I do worry that it may be too Norwegian for its own good. It’s funny, but not laugh-out-loud funny - a lot of the fun is in the small satirical details, and there’s a fair amount of it that you just won’t get without some knowledge of Oslo/Norway. For example, the high-rise neighborhood that Lars and wife are purchasing an apartment in during the first scene, is currently the most expensive neighborhood in Oslo, which makes the way they transform it… just perfect. And I imagine that stuff like the importance his daughter’s “rus”-celebration (basically = prom/end of school celebration equivalent - and we get long debates in the newspapers etc about it every…single…year) may not translate all that well. Or the affected language that the 1800s people talk, which is probably not accurate, but hilarious to listen to.
And that would be a shame, because it’s so far a pretty good show.
I see that, but at the same time I think it is good that the show is a Norwegian show, and not just a generic show they produced in order to meet a goal of X% European content.
Final two episodes of Season 1 got released tonight (wonder if that was a mistake - IMDB says episode 6 should release 18/9).
I really liked this. Good speculative fiction tends to put a mirror on the writer’s own time, and this story certainly does that. I felt this started quite slowly, but my rating for this has increased as they put more depth into the characters, and the plot gradually twists and turns and then twists back again.
I still think there is a fair amount here that will be hard for non-Norwegians to connect to, but I think the series core is strong enough that it probably doesn’t matter too much.
Definitely recommended. There is just one thing I’m dissatisfied with - this is definitely a story that calls for 2-3 more seasons.
Watched it, liked it, and am looking forward to a second season now. It’s always nice to see shows from smaller markets because the setting is fresh and you don’t associate most actors involved with stuff you’ve seen previously.
Could have done without the drug addiction plot thread though because it’s a bit trite, and Beforeigners didn’t really have a new angle on that.
Agree that it was not too original, but I won’t ding the show for that.
I think it’s pretty core to the male protagonist character and plot, so I feel they are excused. A lot of stuff hangs on this in the plot: his kid + kid’s friend “experimenting” with the drug (and getting hold of it), his relationship to the neighbor drug-dealer, as well as the whole mysterious stranger “helping” solve the case subplot, and the general danger to him being outed, etc (+ the career threat to Alfhildr that galvanizes him to action). I don’t see how you remove all that stuff without ending up with a very different set of characters and story
I also think the addiction helps humanize him somewhat - the guy’s not particularly nice to begin with, but it’s pretty apparent early on that he’s struggling with issues. Without that very visible element of suffering, I think he’d come off as a much more unsympathetic character.
The overall framework of the show - experienced cop gets new minority partner is pretty cliche - the fun here is really in the world-building and the mystery of what actually happened.
@Ginger_Yellow Sure it isn’t? I noticed that it just reappeared on our HBO this week; now with English language dubbing (with the original actors, I think).
If not, you’re probably right that they are saving it for the launch of HBOMax.
