Die Toten von Marnow

As this German series, set in the city of Schwerin in the former East Germany, opens a man enters an apartment and discovers a body on the sofa... the body of somebody he intended to murder! He searches the apartment looking for a list of unspecified information. When the body is discovered by the police it is hanging in the bathroom with a message suggesting he was a paedophile carved into him. The case is investigated by Detectives Frank Elling and Lona Mendt. The soon have a second case when a man is found with his throat cut. The evidence suggests the same killer but there is no obvious connection between the victims beyond the fact that the first regularly stayed at a holiday site on the lake near where the second lived. The investigation will expose secrets dating back to the days of the communist DDR and place those investigating in danger; various personal issues don't help matters for them.

I really enjoyed this series. The central mystery was intriguing and had some good twists and turns before the truth is revealed. The opening scene immediately grabs the viewers' attention and get them hooked as we wonder just why two different people wanted this man dead. The main characters are interesting; normal police officers with various imperfections and problems. The actors all do a solid job. The setting adds to one's enjoyment; forests, lakes and some impressive old buildings... not everything east of the old Iron Curtain is grey concrete as those us who grew up before it fell imaged at the time. Overall I'd definitely recommend this to fans of Euro-drama.

These comments are based on watching the series in German with English subtitles.

Wow, these series from Germany really rocked. Nice locations with an intriguing serial murder story hold me electrified.

The actors did a very good job, so all the staff and the director. The eight episodes are well packed with mystery, suspense and action. The running time is perfect and I wanted never stop watching.

I mean it offers high value of entertainment with fast paced scenes and I was never bored.

I hope there will be other episodes with this crew in future. Would be really interesting if there are other mysterious cases to solve. As I mentioned The main actors delivered a top performance and I liked them very much.

Check it out. 7/10.

There are surprises around every corner in this series. The two protagonists are very competent cops and extremely troubled individuals, spectacularly played by Petra Schmidt-Schaller and Sascha Alexander Gersak. (Both were awarded well earned German TV Prizes.) Also standing out: Anne Schäfer and Jörg Schüttauf. No black and white, good against evil here. Unusual for a German production, the good guys are corrupt, take the law routinely into their own hands, try desperately to get away with it and to bring down the real villains for good measure. One memorable scene after the other: A crime victim taking revenge in a shocking way within minutes after the deed. The heroine telling how she lost her whole family. A stunning action sequence with the hero trying to save his own family. A second season would be very welcome.

Hi, my review is based on seeing the original German production. Germany has a long history of producing fine crime dramas, it is the most popular genre in television. The series "The Toten von Marnow" is in my opinion, one of the best shows ever made in this genre. Everything about this series has been beautifully crafted and I'll list some of my reasoning below.

Firstly, the realism of the characters. The cops in this show are absolutely not like your typical Hollywood maverick cops who seem to win every fight, have an IQ of 150 and are disrespectful to their bosses. The main protagonists are just ordinary detectives, both with tragic back stories, which become involved in a conspiracy reluctantly. Each bad decision they make leads to further unforeseeable consequences. They are portrayed brilliantly with a full range of emotions by the leads Sascha Alexander Gersak and Petra Schmidt-Schaller.

The antagonists are equally well portrayed and their motivation, based on misdeeds of the bankrupt former East German government at the end of it's reign, is understandable. There are not hoards of minions being thoughtlessly slaughtered on the way to solving the crime. The people behind the conspiracy are not evil masterminds or one dimensional villains, they are just ordinary people too, who just want the story buried, so they can go on with their new lives in the West.

The pacing of the series is almost perfect. Each episode ends leaving you wanting to see how it develops further. There are plenty of truly unexpected moments in the series, and the conclusion, where the reason for the crimes and the actions of the perpetrators is revealed is both poetic and understandable.

Definitely worth watching if you're a fan of realistically portrayed crime dramas.

I'm all for the character-driven crime series from Scandanavia, but Germany delivers some of the best, more nuanced series in the genre. Marnow Murders (as titled/viewed in the US) has great, movie-quality characters, beautiful filmaking, quirky storyline and...two central figures that draw you into their individual worlds. Exceptional "tv."