Taivaan tulet

My first thoughts on this series were that this must be boring to watch but after following two episodes, being a Finn, it is easy to catch the dark humor and understand the plot as it develops in the series. Great scenes and beautiful nature of Lapland with good soundtrack make this series worth following, cast is pretty well selected and contain good characters. (at least the first couple of episodes). Due to the YLE online policy it seems impossible nowadays to watch any episodes online unfortunately or at least highly difficult to see in United States but Kari Vaananen has proved he has skills way beyond acting arena to me. Direction and his acting in the series with cursing police officer with problems is very amusing and shows he is an artist with multiple talent. I wholeheartedly recommend this series to anyone who wants to peak lifestyle in Lapland or Northern Finland - for real. =)

In recent years, more and more began to become interested in domestic production, especially series that are not made for a few seasons more. This, too, has been on the lookout for years. Now it happened to be found via viaplay, so it came to be watched, downright greedy.

Based on the first episodes, he doubted, but the further he looked and got to know the characters, the better the series became. A few true favorite characters not to mention this unforgettable quartet whose life coincidence changes.

Now that the fault episode has been viewed it became quite empty. Sure, just because it's over, great series!

This series is such a weird mess. It's directed like it wants to be Twin Peaks or something with a lot of hilarious scenes that are really awkward, random or ethereal and you feel like the director(s) might be intentionally making it look that way to give the series this weird... atmosphere. Like Twin Peaks.

But, this series never goes there. It looks like it's really made in a serious manner and all those hilarious scenes just... were intended to be seriously done? Like they tried to do something that is serious drama but the result is... this?

Not sure how I feel about all this. I'm conflicted. The series is entertaining because at any moment you could be given a hilariously awkward or random scene that is just simply *weird*, but then most of the time you feel like you're watching a low-budget drama directed/imaged 20% of the time by random kids from the street and 80% by really talented staff.

Honestly, I like it. The Lappland nature that is shown is absolutely gorgeous and there's a certain charm to the town and its people.

I really don't like the lead character Rauni's casting though. She's played by a very talented actress but somehow it just doesn't click here at all. Rest of the cast is okay, with some *really* good performances thrown in there.

I just wish the parts that turned out serious and "normal" would be shown from better camera angles and with somehow more standard/cinematic views.

But I love the fact that all those random and awkward scenes are directed exactly like this. It's just the best.

And the music... such a beautiful mess too! 50% of the time it sounds awesome and 50% of the time it sounds like a 6-year old kid making music in his room with no guidance and given different themes to do like "hard rock", "psychedelic", "electronic" and the kid just goes and does sounds that end up in this show.

I love it.