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By the end of series 2, I'm afraid I was bored with the characters, bored with their personal problems, which sometimes just swamped the crimes being investigated, and bored with the visual aesthetics. Some time ago, I ducked out of another Canadian series, 'The Coroner', after the last 20 minutes of the first episode attempted to make me interested in the private life of the central character. I can take a certain amount of this - it goes with the territory - but here the setup with the four central characters appears to have been strategically devised with this aspect in mind. I like crime dramas but I do not watch soap opears. Adieu a tous.

This has become my favourite TV show - I have watched season 1 three times and season 2 twice - and so I am delighted that a third season is underway. I have also read that this is despite domestic audience figures falling during season 2, which is disappointing, but I think I can surmise a couple of reasons why.

ONE: did the season become overburdened with narratives? Besides the story arcs carried over from season 1, we now have Ricciardi & Bianca (so he is now pursued by two of the most celebrated beauties in Naples!), Bruno & Lina, Nelide & her market trader, Manfred & Enrica amid the machinations of the Party, Maione's son going off the rails, even Bambinella & his 'boyfriend'. Episodes can become rather bitty as segments try to keep all these storylines going.

TWO: the rich colour palette of season 1 has changed - under the influence of a new director, a new cinematographer, or both? - into a marked predominance of greys and off-whites. There are some sequences, as a result, which are to all intents and purposes in monochrome. I don't know what the point of this is, but it is thus less visually engaging than season 1. I hope that this is rethought for season 3, which I look forward to seeing next year.

I watched this straight after the second season of 'Lolita Lobosco' from Italy, and it came off very poorly from the comparison. In the Italian crime drama, the setting (Bari and surrounds) looks stunning, the cuisine, to which a good deal of attention is devoted, looks irresistible, and the characters are likeable and often funny. In this Danish series they cannot make Helsingor look fabulous despite getting the castle into as many frames as possible; the characters eat but there is no attention to the cuisine; and most of all the central characters are so unlikable that it is impossible to be in the least engaged in their personal problems and dilemmas; and was there a single moment when any character said or did something amusing?. There is nothing in the crime plots, which in both shows can seem subservient, to compensate for the lack of interest generated by the story arc of the characters' relationships. I generally love Scandi shows, but this one seems to me to be a dud.