Den som dræber

Much as I like Danish crime dramas, for me, Those Who Kill, has some conspicuous flaws that can not be overlooked.

Perhaps the biggest is how easily the criminologist who supports the key female lead in the first episode is "blamed and written off", by her boss when things turn pear shaped. This is in spite of the fact he leads the team to the killer's lair in the first episode and he's in no way to blame for what transpires, thereafter. This is explained somewhat in latter episodes but still, it all seems a bit of a stretch.

There are other examples that are implausible too, such as intentionally taking a child into a dangerous armed hostage situation.

That's not to say Those Who Kill is not watchable. It's well acted and and directed. Some of the episodic stories premises are novel too. That said, those positives are let down to a degree by some not insubstantial weaknesses in the back story.

Six out of ten from me.

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).

The creators of Den som dræber were apparently willing to combine CSI- type and Mentalist-type of series, but mind-twisting together with genuine slides of malformed dead bodies, villains are serial killers only, and not-so-catchy main characters (Laura Bach as Katrine Ries Jensen and Jakob Cedergren as Thomas Schaeffer) have not attracted so much popularity as e.g. Forbrydelsen, Broen or Ørnen: En krimi-odyssé. True, there are some fine performances - Lars Mikkelsen in all the episodes and Ulrich Thomsen and Kim Bodnia both in 2 episodes, but the overall pace is sometimes uneven, sometimes protracted; there are 5 different stories over 2 episodes each, and the 1st part of every story includes a summary what will happen in the second episode - annoying for a crime drama where moments of surprise carry a significant weight.

All in all, the series in question is not bad, but it is definitely overshadowed by the series mentioned above. So if you have/need a choice, you better watch the others.

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.