This isn't a bad show, it's just very... Familiar.
There have been sooo many shows over the last 10 years about police detectives aided by outside advisors; detectives working with professors, detectives & psychics, detectives & priests, detectives & doctors, detectives & authors, detectives & socialites, detectives & magicians... It kinda makes you wonder how cops ever managed to solve crimes on their own, before all these concerned citizens got involved!
Another tired concept is the extremely high-IQ guy who is also obsessive-compulsive and/or autistic and/or quirky and/or abrasive and/or rude. I've been to gatherings for a high IQ society. Most super-intelligent people don't walk around behaving like arrogant jerks. I have a relative with an autistic spectrum disorder. She knows that she must act professionally at work and can't be rude to her co-workers.
Having watched all of season 1, there are several things that I find really implausible about this show...
I think it unlikely that Annelies and Daan would be working as partners. Their ages aren't mentioned but Ella Leyers, who plays Annelies, was 27 when the show premiered. Maybe things are different in Belgium but in the U.S. a person goes to the police academy for 6 months then typically works as a uniformed police officer for at least 3 years before becoming a detective. Annelies and Daan went to college so they wouldn't have entered the academy until they were at least 22. In reality, they would each probably be paired up with an older, more senior detective.
As prickly and germ-phobic as the professor is, I find it hard to believe that he was in a relationship with Christina for over 3 years. Him sleeping with a prostitute twice a month seems even less likely. A guy who uses a tissue to touch EVERYTHING, wears rubber gloves in class, sprays disinfectant every time someone steps into his office, and keeps the furniture in his house covered in sheets is going to have sex with a hooker?! A hooker who may have been with a dozen guys since the last time she saw him?! Doubtful.
The police station the detectives work at is the least busy police station I've ever seen. It's so quiet and peaceful that you could curl up on a desk and take a nap.
In the first 2 episodes the killers confess, even though there's no DNA evidence linking them to the crimes. In episode 3 another guy confesses to something that he didn't have to. What is this, Perry Mason?! "Alright, alright... I did it, I did it!"
Annelies is an annoying character who often comes across as immature or just a jerk. She looks like she's going to fall asleep during interrogations, yells at Daan at work, and tells a commissioner who she doesn't like that, "coffee (in the break-room) is for colleagues." When she's trying to jar her alzheimers-afflicted father's memory, she reminds him of the day her mother was buried. Yeesh! Couldn't she just remind him of a birthday or holiday or something happy? Daan seems wimpy for putting up with her bossiness.
Ms. Sneyers, the secretary of T's department, brings some humor but she does something odd that bugs me. Generally, women who commute to work wear sneakers while travelling and then change into their nice shoes or heels when they get to their workplace. Ms. Sneyers always arrives at the school in her heels and then changes into sneakers. Why does she need to wear sneakers to sit at her desk all day?
The professor's mother resembles a drag queen.
His musical fantasies come out of nowhere and just seem to be added as quirkiness for the sake of quirkiness. He does have some good taste in music though.
The cases they solve are alright. Nothing special. The acting is fine all-around.
It's not a great show, it's not a terrible show... It's okay.
There have been sooo many shows over the last 10 years about police detectives aided by outside advisors; detectives working with professors, detectives & psychics, detectives & priests, detectives & doctors, detectives & authors, detectives & socialites, detectives & magicians... It kinda makes you wonder how cops ever managed to solve crimes on their own, before all these concerned citizens got involved!
Another tired concept is the extremely high-IQ guy who is also obsessive-compulsive and/or autistic and/or quirky and/or abrasive and/or rude. I've been to gatherings for a high IQ society. Most super-intelligent people don't walk around behaving like arrogant jerks. I have a relative with an autistic spectrum disorder. She knows that she must act professionally at work and can't be rude to her co-workers.
Having watched all of season 1, there are several things that I find really implausible about this show...
I think it unlikely that Annelies and Daan would be working as partners. Their ages aren't mentioned but Ella Leyers, who plays Annelies, was 27 when the show premiered. Maybe things are different in Belgium but in the U.S. a person goes to the police academy for 6 months then typically works as a uniformed police officer for at least 3 years before becoming a detective. Annelies and Daan went to college so they wouldn't have entered the academy until they were at least 22. In reality, they would each probably be paired up with an older, more senior detective.
As prickly and germ-phobic as the professor is, I find it hard to believe that he was in a relationship with Christina for over 3 years. Him sleeping with a prostitute twice a month seems even less likely. A guy who uses a tissue to touch EVERYTHING, wears rubber gloves in class, sprays disinfectant every time someone steps into his office, and keeps the furniture in his house covered in sheets is going to have sex with a hooker?! A hooker who may have been with a dozen guys since the last time she saw him?! Doubtful.
The police station the detectives work at is the least busy police station I've ever seen. It's so quiet and peaceful that you could curl up on a desk and take a nap.
In the first 2 episodes the killers confess, even though there's no DNA evidence linking them to the crimes. In episode 3 another guy confesses to something that he didn't have to. What is this, Perry Mason?! "Alright, alright... I did it, I did it!"
Annelies is an annoying character who often comes across as immature or just a jerk. She looks like she's going to fall asleep during interrogations, yells at Daan at work, and tells a commissioner who she doesn't like that, "coffee (in the break-room) is for colleagues." When she's trying to jar her alzheimers-afflicted father's memory, she reminds him of the day her mother was buried. Yeesh! Couldn't she just remind him of a birthday or holiday or something happy? Daan seems wimpy for putting up with her bossiness.
Ms. Sneyers, the secretary of T's department, brings some humor but she does something odd that bugs me. Generally, women who commute to work wear sneakers while travelling and then change into their nice shoes or heels when they get to their workplace. Ms. Sneyers always arrives at the school in her heels and then changes into sneakers. Why does she need to wear sneakers to sit at her desk all day?
The professor's mother resembles a drag queen.
His musical fantasies come out of nowhere and just seem to be added as quirkiness for the sake of quirkiness. He does have some good taste in music though.
The cases they solve are alright. Nothing special. The acting is fine all-around.
It's not a great show, it's not a terrible show... It's okay.