Hellfjord

First when I started to watch this TV series, it was bit slow and well... I didn't know what I was watching, bit like what? Is this supposed to be funny? I'm from Finland, so I have seen many Nordic TV series where people just stare each others for about minutes and then say something lame. After watching the 3 first episodes I was still confused. Should this be funny or boring? Then I slowly got it. The show is the most funny black comedy that makes you think all of the time "Is this funny?" , "Should I laugh here?". When I got my Heureka! moment, I have been laughing my guts out! Almost every scene is an a sketch, sometimes you have to rewind to see what the hell just happened, and that sucks on Netflix, but that what life is in Hellfjord! Well... Pihla Viitala as "Riina" is so good, being a Finn. I think most of the viewers did not understand what Riina said to Kobba when he thought Riina had put an spell on him on the 4th episode, but even I had to rewind that scene to get it. Well, this is one of the most hilarious TV series that I have seen in a while. It is a comedy, but the humor is so dark, that you're really not sure, if you should laugh or yawn ones head off or just die laughing, watching this show. The humor is not-so-American and obvious, more like from silent movies, like Chaplin and Tati. Most hilarious and intelligent dark comedy I have seen in a while!

Norwegian comedy? Yup – and it's absolutely brilliant. If you have a weak stomach or are a sensitive New Age person, I would suggest you avoid. But if your sense of humour is wicked, you'll be laughing for days. An Oslo policeman is reprimanded and sent to a remote town for, well let's say an unfortunate incident with a horse. There he meets the oddest collection of locals including his deputy sheriff (Kobba), a Swedish fish factory manager (Bosse Nova) and his landlady (Aunty Cozy) – then the fun begins. For me, Kobba is the character that I love the most. He is old, has a pretty and much younger mail-order bride from Finland and the comments he makes are comedy gold. It's like his brain is set to "retarded" and his mouth to "say the most inappropriate thing you can". I highly recommend this!

I have not laughed that much while watching a TV series since a long time. The humor in this series has a lot of monthy pyton style in it. Its from the beginning to the end totally absurd, in a twin peaks way, but way more funnier. Today humor in TV is often just based on total mindless stupidity. Absolutely everyone in the hellfjord series is also stupid to the max. But its done in a very intelligent way and the dialogs are brilliant. The secret star of the series is definitely Kobba. You have never ever seen such a horrible, ugly, bad and unfriendly person that you will like that much. The only thing which i did not like was, that there was way to much puking involved. In my opinion, the best scene in the series was. Setting accidentally the head of a corps on fire, then trying to put the fire out by shooting it with a shotgun.

Hellfjord is a prime example of missed opportunities. It has a great premise, and some suitable actors in its cast, but a number of creative choices (some of them just plain lazy) turn this show into a dead duck. Marketed as a mix between Lilyhammer and Twin Peaks, Hellfjord may have some of the absurdity of the latter, but none of the warmth and wit of the former.

The series tries to score with gross-out scenes and potty-humour - it's like a trip through the brain of a psychopathic 6-year-old. None of this is entertaining, all it achieves is to paint a picture of creative helplessness and to shine a light on the many ways in which the writing in this series lacks true originality. Toning down all the nonsense and toddleresque jokes by at least 30% would have been a start to improve the show, but then the writing would have needed to be better in order to fill in the gaps. Throwing all the potty-humour and every bawdy joke they could think of at the screen, the writers stuffed the script so full of this kind of crap (and similar bad choices), so that there was no room left for any actual humour. The writing completely fails to tap into the rich reservoir of Nordic humour, the subtleties and the oddities of which we all love so much. Very little of this can be found in this show.

The other massive failure in this show is the casting/acting. I have no idea who thought it was a good idea to have the characters of Kobba and Kose played by young people in bad make-up (Stig Frode Henriksen and Maria Bock). The questionable acting and writing choices surrounding these characters aside, it would have improved the show a lot if they had chosen seasoned actors of the same age as those characters. Preferably character actors that could carry these roles through their experience alone.

Only by episode 6 (out of 7) does this show start to become interesting, but by then it has completely changed its tone because it is heading for a dramatic showdown. And while drama and comedy work well together, drama and silliness don't. That change in tone is so sudden and abrupt that it feels like an entirely different show. The final episode then offers us a Tarantino-style shoot-out which is completely undermined by the following scenes which see the show revert to the inane silliness of the earlier episodes.

It is a shame that such a great idea has been squandered by numerous questionable choices in production. Rating: 4.5 out of 10.

This show owes a lot to Hot Fuzz - city cop in small town of yokel characters with something unspoken afoot, and the second half of the first episode even borrows from the very Edgar Wright quick-cut close- ups "getting ready" sequence. Even almost a "greater good" scene.

I'm reviewing early as I'm not sure I'll finish the series. If I hadn't seen Hot Fuzz I may be a little more forgiving, they may have taken this setup to different places, and there will be different gags so maybe I'll stick with it...but if you haven't watched Hot Fuzz, you'll see so many similarities it may feel a little overfamilar