Beat

I just watched this on Amazon and it's probably one of their grittier imports. Overall, I liked it. It had a complex story (more than it initially seems), a conflicted good guy, a very smart bad guy and spy service that sometimes is good and other times is bad.

Overall, I think the story was fairly complex and only at the very end you are able to unroll the layers. Dubbing wasn't that good but i guess there are no good dubbing out there.

At times, I felt some of the flashbacks were a bit much but I also don't like flashbacks in general.

A bit more detail about the main players:

The main hero is a conflicted techno club organizer that is being manipulated (I don't have to give up anything but it's much more than it seems) into being a under cover agent for secret service.

Bad guy seems to be cold blooded, calculating and extremely intelligent; thus proving a worthy opponent.

The secret police is more of a challenge. You never know where they stand and what they want. Only later we know realize their true motives. Keeps things very interesting.

Music is techno and visuals are bit dark and lots of gray. I was never a clubber myself, but I think I could see them doing a good job with it, that at times I felt I was in that chaos, where anything and everything was OK.

Overall, I enjoyed it.

First of all, Jannis Niewöhner was really good in this as BEAT. At first I thought, oh here we go again another pretty boy to get audience attention BUT as it turns out, the guy's a good actor. He plays a very flawed techno club party promoter that gets mixed up in crime around him of all sorts.

You have sympathy for orphaned as a child BEAT but you come to realize he is one messed up guy with a conscience and a strong sense of right and wrong unless it interferes with his drug taking habit and partying. So in that, Jannis Niewöhner did a pretty good job I'd say of presenting an anti-hero of sorts.

The rest of the cast is pretty good too. The emotionless bad guy that will sell his Mother's organs if had to, Secret Service head and the woman handler that cares about him (when every one else uses him), his well meaning but somewhat clueless best friend, his creepy childhood psycho secret admirer, etc. A lot of variety in characters that kept me interested. And ya, they even threw in your perfunctory Russian Mob gun smugglers and human traffickers...just for good measure.

The show was a thriller from the point of view if he bites it in the end or not as a result of all the dirt he has on the bad guys (and to a lesser extent, if he finally gets to find out who his parents are).

All in all, pretty good. And yes, you hinge on every facial nuance of BEAT through the whole series.

Leave your expectations of a club scene exposé at the door with the bouncers, as despite Beat giving the viewer an introductory tour of Berlin's hedonism and his friend Paul's club, a sinister tone quickly descends upon Beat's carefree world. Murder in clubland suddenly drags our drug-addled drifter protagonist into a plot to go undercover to investigate something much bigger afoot and at that point you'd be forgiven for fearing a ludicrous plot lies ahead. However, like a good club track the story builds and builds, adding complex layers then stripping them back with reveals, but always taking you on a journey and this one is a dark thriller.

Watching in German language is the only way to do this series justice, as subtitles really do melt away under the acting power of Jannis Niewöhner as the affable but anarchic Beat and Alexander Fehling as the sociopathic Vossberg, among other convincing performances.

From a critical standpoint, the portrayal of the 'ESI' is perhaps a little unconvincing and at worst clichéd, Jasper's story-line falls somewhat flat of the wider plot and everything happens in a stage-managed environment where the media doesn't seem to interfere and the real police only show up when called upon. However, some suspension of disbelief is always demanded in all storytelling and the story grips hold of you and twists and turns until you feel some of the pain and dread of the characters themselves. This is where 'Beat' succeeds and earns its credibility as a surprisingly compelling and powerful piece of TV/cinema that just happens to be set against an edgy Berlin clubland setting. That it is is no bad thing though, as the setting lends itself to a great music score and gritty backdrop to this original and highly enjoyable epic.

Underoath the comment you left just buries the hopes for humanity. To come on the WORLD WIDE WEB and say you can not watch a show that is in a language other than English!?!? This is why noone trusts IMBD anymore!

I wasn't sure about it going into the first episode, but the more I watched it, the more I loved it. By the end I was totally invested in Beat's life and that of his inner circle. It was a whirlwind for sure and had some very heartbreaking moments, but I loved it and hope to see a season 2! (It is in German, with English subtitles.)