Arctic Circle

The scenario in itself is not extraordinary but you quicly get close to the characters. The actors are quiet good but i want to give a special award to Venla : Amazing Kid !!!

(How is it that mine is the only review here? That's just mental.)

While the British TV makers are farting about with blurry vision, wobbly cameras, pointless flashbacks, insane diversity quotas, incomprehensible accents and disco-volume 'background' music, the Finnish (and the rest of Europe) are quietly making riveting TV drama the way it should be made.

Nobody is crying or shouting... people are making sensible decisions and every camera has a working tripod that anchors it to the floor. It's truly awesome to see television like this and you really have to wonder why the UK have lost their touch when it comes to quality crime drama.

Anyway... Russian prostitutes are showing up in Lapland dead, or nearly dead. The one thing they have in common is the virus they share... and the infection runs deep into this ice cold rural area.

This has attracted the centers for disease control in Germany and Helsinki and experts are sent to figure out what's going on.

The local police team up with the Russian cops and the bio experts bring in their own teams of investigators. Nobody is sharing information, so of course, the situation deteriorates rapidly.

Watching this drama unfold is simply a joyous way to spend time. The dialog is about half in Finnish and half in English. Top notch TV and a master class in how television drama should be made.

I watched the first season, and I think the second one has not released as of yet.

I really wanted to like this more than I did. The start of the show was strong and the scenery is beautiful. Everything about it screams production value as well, there are no complaints in that regard (camera work, directing, props etc.) for me.

Well, there's one thing. The "action" sequences and especially the whole of episode 9 is just brutally hard to watch. I don't know what it is, but everything about episode 9 and action stuff in general just seems... off. Can't really say what ruins the experience as I'm not an expert in that, but something is just off.

The premise is okay-ish. I mean the plot is definitely one of the weakest points of this show, but the character developments are generally good enough to distract you from the lackluster main plot. Sometimes the threads in the plot just make no sense and sometimes they are unintentionally hilarious and awkward (like the whole arc of the one-eyed dude, jesus).

What saves the show and gives me confidence to put a 7/10 on the board is the fact that the camera work, directing, acting, sound design and all that good stuff that immerses you in the experience is really great, honestly. The acting especially really surpassed my expectations, though I have to mention again that the lackluster plot just drags that down with it for some part.

All in all it's not a bad season. Good enough for me to wait for season 2, but not good enough to make me rush to get my hands on it. I'll definitely check the next season out if it happens to be on any platform I subscribe to, but I won't go out of my way to watch it.

The English dubbing in this film is so atrocious that it reduces the appeal of the entire story. The dubbing cast sounds like it's reading from a sixth grade English class script. Not paying any attention to the what the words say or mean because they think that a full stop Is at the end of each line on the paper. A few irritatingly read two words at a time, like the SNL spoof of Captain Kirk. Add some annoying speech impediments plus a lack of expression or emotion in the dubbed lines and you're left with most of the tension and atmosphere reduced. I've heard more animation from people reading a menu than those supposedly going through tense and emotional scenes.

The story is intriguing - sex trafficking, a dangerous pathogen and cross border tensions should provide lots of intrigue and drama. The expressions and body language of the actors (some ofvwhom I've been impressed with from watching other Finnish dramas with subtitles) indicates that they are infinitely better than the talentless dubbing cast- in fact, it sounds like there are about six people in the dubbing cast, with each reading several characters. Badly. Part of the problem could be that the dubbing actors are not native English speakers, which would account for both the wooden delivery and the lack of flow.

The atmosphere, settings and scenery provide an air of menace that emphasizes the isolation of a sparsely populated place and the claustrophobia of a small village, despite showing vast tracts of pristine white landscapes.

Ironically, the main character chastises an older cop for using less than flattering terms for sex workers, but the entire casts uses Lappland, which is viewed as derogatory towards the indigenous Sampi or Sami people who live in the very northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland.

I really want to see what happens so I will endure the increasingly irritating dubbing to find out.

Maybe Plex can do what Netflix does, offer the viewer the option of watching non- English shows dubbed or subtitled. For maximum enjoyment l, go for the subtitles.

I have to say that some of the plot lines are somewhat fantastical but I enjoyed them for all that. The acting was good and once more I am just so impressed at the proficiency of so many European actors in English. And a special mention, as so many others have done, for the young woman who played Venla so incredibly well.

The second season is freshest in my mind as I just saw it last week and I was left with an impression that the series was grappling with ethical and moral dilemmas as well as being a cop drama. The writers took the position that any form of vigilantism is completely wrong even if it were a considered, researched one. And extrapolating from the events in season two, that the death penalty is wrong if only for the fact that the executed person might be innocent.

Tension built as new revelations about the characters grew and explained their motivations. We also saw the very real difference between Finland, the supposedly least corrupt country in the world, and Russia where the authorities collude in lawlessness and corruption.

We also had human interest themes - the aforementioned Venla, infidelity and betrayal, the grisly fate of gays in Russia, relationships with parents.

I hope I'm not making this sound terribly worthy and boring as it isn't. Both seasons were fast paced and gripping. I hope there will be a third.