Overspel

I really loved this series . I loved the story lines loved the cast nothing about this series I didn't love . The only thing I can say negative was why did they get rid of it after 3 seasons I have seen horrible shows that lasted 10 years or more . I wish the show could've lasted a few more seasons.

After having watched all twelve episodes of this Dutch television series, it is obvious to me that this series is one of the best Dutch television series of the last decade: well written, very good acting (espcially by Sylvia Hoeks and Kees Prins) and beautiful cinematography. In "Overspel" the storyline and the development of the characters are more important than fast action scenes. Even though "Overspel" can't reach the extremely high level of the Danish series "The Killing" (a.k.a. Forbrydelsen), I can very much recommend it. For non Dutch readers who have become curious and would like to watch it: the DVD-release has English subtitles.

Addition after watching season 2. Season 2 of Overspel is again of very high quality and the acting is, like in season 1, on a very high level. Especially Kees Prins and Ramsey Nasr are sublime as father and son Couwenberg. Of course Sylvia Hoeks plays her character Iris very convincing too. The tension in season 2 is increasing from episode 1 until the final episode 10. I will not go into further detail, but I've enjoyed every second of this season a lot. I'm looking forward to the 3rd season, which has been filmed already (if I'm well informed), or is in the process of being filmed. Can't wait!

Great cast? Fedja van Huet, Kees Prins, Rifka Lodeizen...Check! Decent script? Check! It is good enough for the USA to make a remake of it so it is nothing to sneeze at. How ever, the best dutch series ever made in the same league was Pleidooi and 9Dagen van de Gier which are both hard to match. This is pretty good though. It has it all, Prins is phenomenal, Van Huet is the usual genuine for-real-guy and Nasr's part of sweet dufus with an edge. Nothing wrong with it. For 90% of the time it is a good watch. Sometimes, just sometimes, though Hoeks character Iris gets irritating with the custody situation and the nagging. I guess the adulterous relationship (which it is named after) gets kind of tedious. The reality of the court and the police investigations is superb. Just rarely there is a hint of Spijkerhoek quality twists (Yup I said it) Guns in court, overly hysterical teens and general tantrums with excessive swearing...Tsk tsk, gets old. Maybe I adjust my review after seeing season 2. Lets see. It's just not Pleidooi....

Not a bad story. Pretty good weave of marriage problems, big scale crime and corruption, and justice. I was put off by the adulterers who were entirely self-centered and ginned up an obsessive love affair out of what could as well have been a month long one-night stand. I simply could not see what so compelled them about each other. They were not exactly a dynamic duo. Flat, generic love affair at the center of a rather entertaining narrative. Further, they were not sympathetic in their insistence on elevating physical attraction over marriage, and in the woman's case, a child, We did see an increasingly unlikeable side to their rejected spouses, but they did not seem to grow more interesting or insightful with experience, not as individuals, not as a couple. I can recommend the show as it gathers intensity and the plot starts unfolding, but not as a great watch overall.

... this series not working on a couple of levels, main one being lead-casting... deciding on Sylvia Hoeks' as a character that's a working photographer, devoted mother to a young son, wasn't a proper decision-choice... looking all-time more like the super-model she really is, she's just put on the wrong side of the camera-lens in this story... then attempting portraying her as a nice person, and good mother, again not making logic-sense, for along with another extremely selfish character (her-affair's-lover), she spontaneously-eagerly enters into a steamy sexual liaison with this married (two children) shady lawyer, who finds her absolutely irresistible (least that's believable, as she is alluringly-beautiful) if morally reprehensible given his family circumstances

... and so it goes in what appears absolutely no time, they've moved-out-abandoning their families, setting up their love-nest in her very attractive work-studio on-harbor-edge... throw in some family characters with their own tedious storylines, and you have Overspel (Adultery)... also, it all took far too long in thirty-plus-episodes, could-would-have been better in a third-fewer-shows

... then there's ending's final blow, for all-those anti-adultery-viewers (can't say why), but it's so really nasty how selfishness does all this harm to so many, and then gets-future-finalized in this fashion... ugh.