I agree with the reviewer who basically said this series does not deliver what it initially suggests.
The beginning setup is there is a husband and wife who are employed in different fields which have an overlapping tie. And they make a pledge to work together but keep their work separate. THAT'S THE SETUP.
Then the filmmakers have a field day shifting the timeline back and forth. All of the most successful series (Bron/Broen for example) do NOT use that technique. At that point, the series begins to bog down, big time.
Next, the filmmakers throw in the overused paradigm that Erling Riiser is not a good husband because he fails to address the emotional needs of his wife. Which is completely plausible for a professional soldier. But is SO trite, it's unbearable. You mean to tell me there are NO professional soldiers who are sensitive to their wife's needs? What about the agreement they made at the start of the series?
Then the filmmakers throw in long drawn out scenes in the present that bog the series down further. The saving grace is, the action sequences are (seemingly) realistic and not overly done.
At the end is a typical military story resolution. But it's dry because the initial promise of an intriguing story about how a husband and wife worked back channels together to pull off a social change that otherwise would not have happened went right out the window.
I gave this a 7 because Aksel Hennie does a wonderful job of portraying a professional soldier. And as I've stated, the action sequences were quite good. However, I had to fast-forward through several laborious scenes. As several people have mentioned, the documentary-style camera moves were overdone, to the point of becoming a parody of itself.
And shifting the timeline back and forth did not create a more sophisticated story. But rather a more incoherent one.
The beginning setup is there is a husband and wife who are employed in different fields which have an overlapping tie. And they make a pledge to work together but keep their work separate. THAT'S THE SETUP.
Then the filmmakers have a field day shifting the timeline back and forth. All of the most successful series (Bron/Broen for example) do NOT use that technique. At that point, the series begins to bog down, big time.
Next, the filmmakers throw in the overused paradigm that Erling Riiser is not a good husband because he fails to address the emotional needs of his wife. Which is completely plausible for a professional soldier. But is SO trite, it's unbearable. You mean to tell me there are NO professional soldiers who are sensitive to their wife's needs? What about the agreement they made at the start of the series?
Then the filmmakers throw in long drawn out scenes in the present that bog the series down further. The saving grace is, the action sequences are (seemingly) realistic and not overly done.
At the end is a typical military story resolution. But it's dry because the initial promise of an intriguing story about how a husband and wife worked back channels together to pull off a social change that otherwise would not have happened went right out the window.
I gave this a 7 because Aksel Hennie does a wonderful job of portraying a professional soldier. And as I've stated, the action sequences were quite good. However, I had to fast-forward through several laborious scenes. As several people have mentioned, the documentary-style camera moves were overdone, to the point of becoming a parody of itself.
And shifting the timeline back and forth did not create a more sophisticated story. But rather a more incoherent one.