Spuren

I rarely ' binge watch ' , however I have just watched all four episodes of ' Spuren / The Black Forest Murders ' in a single evening / early morning ! Superbly acted and a thoroughly great watch with some great scenery. This TV drama highlighted for me the manpower, time, cost and challenges sometimes needed to eventually track down a killer. This is an addictive and gripping watch and highly recommended viewing. I do hope that this isn't just a one-off drama involving the actors in this police team, as I would love to watch them involved in other criminal cases/murders.

Well Done to everybody involved in this superb German TV drama.

This four part German series is inspired by real events that took place in southern Germany. As it opens a young woman goes out for a jog; she does not return and is reported missing. The police, many of whom know the local community well, start a major operation to find her. Eventually a body is found and suspicions about the identity of the killer are raised... then a second woman is murdered; the MO might be different but police fear they may be dealing with a serial killer.

I thought this was a solid drama. The pace might not be fast but that suits the story as it captures the fact that real investigations take time; often a long time. There are some events that defy genre conventions in an interesting way. The cast does a fine job and the setting is, as one has come to expect of the genre, quite scenic. I'd certainly recommend this to fans of Euro-crime.

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

This miniseries was inspired by - but not a retelling or adaptation of - a series of murders in the south of Germany and Austria several years ago. The setting is a prosperous set of villages where virtually everyone knows everyone else which led to tensions and missteps in the investigations.

Things were pretty true-to-life inasmuch as even in the most beautiful of environments ugly racism reared its head on more than one occasion.

There was only going to be one way to solve these crimes and that was by painstaking police work, not inspired guessing. The special team assembled ticked all the boxes and came through in the end.

I really enjoyed this as much for the settings as the twists and turns and ups and downs of the investigations. I hadn't been sure I'd like it but I did and would recommend it.

This must be the most unexciting crime thriller I have ever had the misfortune to watch. Totally bland cinematography, numb acting, implausible dialogue, actions and reactions from every single character throughout. No suspense whatsoever, no leads for viewers to follow, hardly even any red herrings. Why anyone greenlighted this project is the only real mystery here.

These problems are shared with many "based on a true story" dramas, but rarely has less effort been made to create something worth watching.

Series like Heimat and many others have shown that even Germans can create great drama, but this is just a huge dissapointment.

'Spuren' is rather different to a normal crime drama; it's closer to a reconstruction of an actual murder investigation. As someone who visited southern Germany a lot during the late 1990s, I can vouch for the accuracy of the aesthetics; and the story is also very believable: the investigation is slow and hard and characterised more by gradual shifts in direction rather than wild turns in the plot. The relationships we see between colleagues have a slightly hackneyed feel in places but are also believable. It's actually quite refreshing to watch a series where not every detail has obviously been placed to set something else up. The underlying tale is of course decidedly bleak; to see if they caught the perpetrator in the end, you'll just have to give it a watch.