This is not a "5 minute review" because it took me 5 minutes to write, it is because that is how long I watched this program before abandoning it.
We start with what is obviously a CGI'd picture of a man lying on something, shouting. We hear whining, things start spinning and the camera zooms out to reveal, wait for it – the man is tied to a now spinning helicopter rotor blade. Never mind that it would be impossible to secure his body and have it remain there long enough for what happens next to happen. Never mind that the helicopter would shake itself into a million pieces due to the blades being out of balance. As the camera zooms out enough for things to become a little sketchy we see a trial of red shoot off the blade, which we have to assume id the man's head flying off. This, apparently, is a murder, using a helicopter as a weapon. Yes, that's right, death by helicopter. There will be no problem tracing the murder weapon for this baby. I expect the writer thought this was innovative and edgy, but no, it simply sets a new high/low in stupidity.
OK, it would be a rare program indeed that did not require some suspension of logic at some stage. I mean, you would ask for your money back if a James Bond movie did not have at least one crazy, logic or physics defying scene in it. But the difference is, this was not billed as a James Bond,"Boys Own" action program it was billed as a Scandinavian noir mystery with an implied promise of sophistication and reality.
Next we are in a somewhere in Paris and amazingly a driver is finally asking his hitchhiker where he wants to be dropped off. Of course any normal person would have done this a couple of hours before this, but evidently this is no normal program. The hitch hiker is duly dropped off and we know we will never see the driver again. Well that whole piece of dialog was a complete waste of time wasn't it.
Next we are back (I think) in Norway. Against a backdrop of a small mountain of whiteware a man is trying to load an oven into his car. I can only assume that having random mountains of whiteware scattered around the landscape is a Norwegian thing. Evidently the man thinks this is a free service because he was intending just to drive off with this thing, but no, an assistant, says he must pay. The man informs the assistant that he must have this oven today because it is his son's Birthday, so he will pick out any old random, untested oven, no doubt it will just fit perfectly into his kitchen, he will personally wire it up, and bravo he will cook his son a cake. The shops, we are told, are closed, but luckily the great Norwegian Whiteware Mountains never close and so the assistant whips a VISA machine out of his overall's pocket, as you do, and although no price is mentioned, the deal is done. So what the blazes was that all about? I doubt very much we will hear anything again of the oven, the son, the birthday, or the cake, so I can only assume this entire sequence was simply the most bizarre way in the world to introduce a new character, and that at the end of all this all we know about him is that he has a son, it is his birthday, and that he is an ace oven installer.
What can you say after this dismal start? What is the acceptable "stupidity ratio" for abandoning a program? One stupid episode per quarter hour? Whatever it is, in my view it was well exceeded.
Perhaps it got better as the writers got into their swing but they crashed and burnt at the first hurdle and so I will never know.
We start with what is obviously a CGI'd picture of a man lying on something, shouting. We hear whining, things start spinning and the camera zooms out to reveal, wait for it – the man is tied to a now spinning helicopter rotor blade. Never mind that it would be impossible to secure his body and have it remain there long enough for what happens next to happen. Never mind that the helicopter would shake itself into a million pieces due to the blades being out of balance. As the camera zooms out enough for things to become a little sketchy we see a trial of red shoot off the blade, which we have to assume id the man's head flying off. This, apparently, is a murder, using a helicopter as a weapon. Yes, that's right, death by helicopter. There will be no problem tracing the murder weapon for this baby. I expect the writer thought this was innovative and edgy, but no, it simply sets a new high/low in stupidity.
OK, it would be a rare program indeed that did not require some suspension of logic at some stage. I mean, you would ask for your money back if a James Bond movie did not have at least one crazy, logic or physics defying scene in it. But the difference is, this was not billed as a James Bond,"Boys Own" action program it was billed as a Scandinavian noir mystery with an implied promise of sophistication and reality.
Next we are in a somewhere in Paris and amazingly a driver is finally asking his hitchhiker where he wants to be dropped off. Of course any normal person would have done this a couple of hours before this, but evidently this is no normal program. The hitch hiker is duly dropped off and we know we will never see the driver again. Well that whole piece of dialog was a complete waste of time wasn't it.
Next we are back (I think) in Norway. Against a backdrop of a small mountain of whiteware a man is trying to load an oven into his car. I can only assume that having random mountains of whiteware scattered around the landscape is a Norwegian thing. Evidently the man thinks this is a free service because he was intending just to drive off with this thing, but no, an assistant, says he must pay. The man informs the assistant that he must have this oven today because it is his son's Birthday, so he will pick out any old random, untested oven, no doubt it will just fit perfectly into his kitchen, he will personally wire it up, and bravo he will cook his son a cake. The shops, we are told, are closed, but luckily the great Norwegian Whiteware Mountains never close and so the assistant whips a VISA machine out of his overall's pocket, as you do, and although no price is mentioned, the deal is done. So what the blazes was that all about? I doubt very much we will hear anything again of the oven, the son, the birthday, or the cake, so I can only assume this entire sequence was simply the most bizarre way in the world to introduce a new character, and that at the end of all this all we know about him is that he has a son, it is his birthday, and that he is an ace oven installer.
What can you say after this dismal start? What is the acceptable "stupidity ratio" for abandoning a program? One stupid episode per quarter hour? Whatever it is, in my view it was well exceeded.
Perhaps it got better as the writers got into their swing but they crashed and burnt at the first hurdle and so I will never know.