Paratiisi

I was so pleased to see this series back for a second season, which I have just finished watching. All the old characters were back and a completely new storyline.

Fortunately, I was watching a version subtitled into English for all three languages used. On the face of things, it seemed an odd combination to have Finland and Spain in the same series yet it worked. But the Costa del Sol is teeming with Finns - three Finnish friends of mine have holiday homes there. We got a glimpse into this community during the two seasons.

Both storylines hooked me in. This was a series to be consumed at a pace to find out what would happen next. And the tension was unbearable sometimes. We knew that one of the main characters was going to be shot at some point but the lead up to it was pretty unbearable. It's a huge cliffhanger, of course. So we are looking forward to season three. I can't wait.

I am a mono-lingual English speaker who enjoys watching mysteries filmed in other languages by using the English subtitles. But in this confusing mishmash, every time the language changes, the CC text that pops up to inform the viewer that the characters were now "speaking in a foreign language" obscured the very subtitles I needed to see in order to understand! Since these changes were fairly often--1) because the show included scenes in Finland as well as in Spain, and 2) because many scenes involved the Finnish community in Spain--this distraction occurred often enough to obliterate my possible comprehension!

The show would've been a lot more enjoyable if the English subtitles weren't so incredibly bad. Terrible grammar, really awkward phrasing and badly chosen vocabulary made them excruciating to read.

Paratiisi is fun to watch. It is something as rare as a crimer series that feels contemporary. It is a trilingual series (Spanish, English, Finnish) with a lot of border crossing cooperation and people. The actors actually feel like normal people. Some will like that, others will not. Most of the series takes place in southern Spain, in the interplay between expat community and police in the city of Fuengirola.

The actual story is a rather unoriginal murder plot taking many turns. Not all the turns feel reaslitic and the end is not the best. The police investigators are far from superstars, even less than glamorous. There is also some added, seemingly redundant, storyline concerning dementia. Still the overall impression is Paratiisi is a solid 8x45 min piece crime series fitting well with the modern world.

I am English-speaking and I enjoy this program very much. However, many people are complaining about the Close Captioning, and that when Spanish/Finnish is spoken with CC on you cannot read the CC because a blurb comes on saying a foreign language is being spoken. Here's a suggestion: To manage the Close Captioning, use the CC button most remotes have. When English is spoken, tap CC to turn it on and the English CC will appear; when Finnish and/or Spanish is being spoken, quickly tap it to turn it off. Conversely, you can keep the CC off all the time if you can understand the English without Close Captioning. I have found, however, that CC even in English is handy to help decipher what is being said!