Criminal: Spagna

But the woman in charge of interrogations is a real psychopath. The actress playing her did really well in making me hate her with her actions

Since the Criminal series features four countries, comparisons are inevitable and the Spanish version really fares badly against the British, Germand and French versions. The police seem to be a very unpopular lot in Spain, judging by how this series has been written. I got the same feeling watching Money Heist, where the police were depicted more as villains than heroes. In all three episodes of Criminal: Spain, the police officers behave very badly, resorting to some very unethical practices in order to get their way. This creates an uncomfortable situation for the viewer. Who, after all, is the criminal here?

This first episode is so different from the UK version. The story isn't bad but it just seems very, very sloppy. Isabel is far too uneasy the whole way through. Overacting for getting excessively fidgety. The sloppiest of all is when the props are all at the wrong place. Isabel has all her stuff out of her bag and back in her bag over and over again and they don't match up. It's especially evident in the end (37:05) when she puts on her lipstick one last time. Her bag and phone are on the left of her but when she was done and the camera angles switches coming from the corner of the room, her bag, phone and everything are on the corner to Isabel's right. No continuity whatsoever. Did they even have a script supervisor? What a sloppy editor for not noticing or ignoring the mistake. This is not on par with the UK series at all.

Just like the French, German and English versions this series is unbelievably good and it's just a shame that the episodes are so short and few. Hopefully they'll develop the concept into a longer series as we're only just getting to know the characters by the end of episode 3.

Great casting and storyline and eminently suitable for adaptation to the stage.

If you liked criminal UK, you'll probably be hugely disappointed by Criminal Spain. I'm unsure how accurately this show represents Spain's legal system but if it's accurate, the cops spend half their time trying to kick out the defendant's lawyer and the rest of the time asking about their vacations or backing up their nonsensical theories with their "gut" Perhaps it's something lost in the awful translations but this show is definitely NOT up to par with its UK counterpart...