Nord bei Nordwest

Few genres have been played most in TV series as the police one, practically every country has had several them, most outstanding probably had been italian, swedish, spanish, french and, why not, german like this; formerly Hamburg police Hauke Jacobs moves to a small town on the north coast, Schwanitz, buys a small fishing boat and settles down as the village's new rural veterinarian; reasons for the change of the protagonist are not clear, it seems that he does not get along the people, however from the very beginning helps the police officer Lona Vogt in the resolution of the most varied crimes, while exercising his new profession with the help of his assistant Jule Christiansen, who seems in love with him.

I watched the first episode and didn't really get into it. I then tried with what I thought was episode two but which was actually episode twelve. Not much better. I then watched the real second episode and gave up halfway through.

I didn't find the characters convincing, in fact some of them were downright irritating. Motivations and the past were hidden so the events leading up to the present day and its effects on the personal sphere at the time of the series were unclear. We haven't got a clue how a cop becomes a vet, for example.

The sorts of plots that I saw in those three episodes were not convincing. International criminals, state premiers and their political shenanigans, ghostly legends acting on the present. That this was happening in a one-policewoman town was simply not something I could believe in. I also just don't know how forensic samples got to Travemünde so quickly and how the results were so fast.

That a village policewoman solves these complex and tortuous crimes (with help from the vet) and with no seeming help from the local Kriminalamt or the LKA doesn't make me confident in the development of the stories. The attempts at humour were wearing; I particularly disliked the characterisation, in fact caricaturisation, of the Turkish cast member who is portrayed as a bumbling idiot with a comic accent. It's utterly shameful in this day and age. Other attempts at fleshing out characters with humour fell completely flat and were grating in the extreme, such as the verbal diarrhoea of the veterinary assistant.

The episodes are ninety minutes long. That's about thirty to forty minutes too much. There could have been so much padding taken out to make the stories leaner and better paced.

All in all, I am sorry I wasted more than three hours on this nonsense.

Crime, humor, but not mystery

The characters developed well over the years and the changes in the line-up helped getting into the storylines.

Even questions like how a vet can be working for the police are clarified throughout the evolving background.

One emphasis lies on the northern humor that should be especially suited for northern german and british viewers. Another lies within the developing personal contacts in the interactions of the local society. And to be complete another main topic are the views of the quiet and calming spaces when living at the see especially in contradiction to the brutal criminal cases that disturb these scenes.