Den som dræber

Recommended and indeed gifted to me by my brother, "Those Who Kill" is another Nordic Noir series putting together a male and female lead to hunt down serial killers in Denmark.

I've just watched the first episode bringing together Katrine Jensen, a young, rebellious and ambitious detective and an outside profiler turned lecturer, Thomas Schaeffer, with unsatisfactory experience of working with Katrine's Super on previous cases. I can't think why, when in this episode, one relatively minor mistake apart, he uses his instincts to track down the murderer just in time to rescue Katrine from his clutches.

The man/woman detective duo fronting the show isn't original, especially in this field neither is the plotting which sees the killer victimising, breaking down and torturing his female prey and Katrine then quickly becoming his next target. The visual style is hardly different from its predecessors either with grisly crime scenes and the pitting of wits between good and evil filmed in a grey, grimy backdrop.

I found the story rather raced to its conclusion and took too many giant leaps in the continuity process with some unaccountable actions by all the major participants. That said, if was grittily realistic and reasonably gripping throughout. I'm sort of hoping there will be no romantic entanglement between the two leads to distract from the detective work although to be fair, this didn't happen in "The Killing" or "The Bridge". I like that the leads too seem to have less "strange cargo" to carry too. I don't mind a bit if background shading but really just want to watch a thrilling mystery show without the sometimes obligatory emotional baggage.

I've the rest of the first series to watch and will do so soon, going by what I saw here.

Watched the whole series and thought was quite good.... The plot is different in each episode but tends to have a psychological thought behind each of the murders..which the lead is adept at recognizing...of course not before a few lambs have been sacrificed to the killer The direction is pretty good and makes it a fast paced interesting watch The fact that we have to follow the English subtitles probably means we pay more attention and in the process we tend to get less distracted and like it more. Somehow felt better than the various US crime series, much better than the psychic ones. The research done on the thought process of the human mind is what makes this a intriguing series and a must watch for the people who like crime thrillers.

After seeing the first episode, I've thought that it's going to be another amazing Scandinavian TV series, in vein of Bron/Broen and Borgen (although the latter one is different genre). But after the second episode I've realized that I just don't care for the main characters. Or to be precise - I'm indifferent about Thomas and I dislike Katrine. OK, she's not supposed to be colorful and amazing person (albeit also asocial) as Saga Noren, I get that, but having a plain, boring and always angry copy of Sarah Lund doesn't help much either. Still, it's very watchable and solid show, but it could have been much more if they had stronger leads (not in the term of acting, they're fine).

Another great Scandinavian series. The horror that a serial killer roams the streets becomes true. Wonderful suspense great characters who come too life. No in depth characters like e.g. in the killing but still great entertainment and I was sorry to find out that there was no sequence. Like I said these is still plenty too enjoy in these series. I indeed looked forward to every new episode. If you are looking for a well made detective series you will not be disappointed by those who kill. In these years that there are coming wonderful series from the north.You do fall in love with the tormented characters and their problems they face in their private lives Go on Danes and keep on making series like this one.

Until recently we never saw television programmes that weren't in English; then BBC4 started airing the Swedish police show 'Wallander' after its success is wasn't long before they followed it up with programmes from France, Denmark and Italy; all in the native language and English subtitles. It was only a matter of time before another channel started to showing something from the continent; the channel was ITV3 and the programme was the Danish murder mystery 'Those Who Kill'. Originally shown as ten episodes featuring five two part stories the episodes were combines to make five feature length episodes; probably a wise move as the two hour crime drama is the standard format here.

This series follows the activities of a murder squad whose cases inevitably turn out to involve serial killers. The squad is led by Magnus Bisgaard although the main characters are Katrine Ries Jensen and civilian profiler Thomas Schaeffer. No matter what the case it is a safe bet that one of our protagonists will end up in mortal danger only for them to turn the tables on the bad guy. While the cases are fairly standard for this type of drama they were still enjoyable and while I didn't really expect the protagonists to come to any harm there were plenty of tense moments. Lead actors Laura Bach and Jakob Cedergren performed well in the roles of Katrine and Thomas and the rest of the cast seemed to do well too; although I can't comment on how their accents fitted the roles as I was relying on the subtitles and wouldn't have spotted if somebody sounded wrong! Overall I'm glad I watched this series; it might not have been one of the best continental series I've seen but it was still entertaining; its a pity further series weren't made.