Über die Grenze (2017– )
4/10
Barely watchable trash
13 April 2021
It's not surprising that a second season was never commissioned. Cardboard-cutout characters, ludicrous plots, holes in the story big enough to sink the Titanic in, ridiculous coincidences, criminals who were beyond psychopathy.

In no particular order, we have a kidnapped cop who doesn't escape when she has multiple opportunities to and also call her colleagues; a couple of cops who break French and German law on multiple occasions and don't even get disciplined in the slightest; a police psychiatrist who certifies an officer suffering from clear PTSD as fit to work; an attempted murder of a victim in intensive care where the would-be perp simply walks in and detaches the ventilation tube, tripping the alarms but no one come running to try to stop the patient from crashing. There's more, but I don't want to really get into spoilers.

I'm going to mention the gay background story in a separate paragraph. It's never made explicit and is only hinted at and kept in the background. It is absurdly used as a blackmail attempt against the two guys involved in this day and age. And the utter cliche of the hettie relationship having won out in the end against the gay one is stuff of the 80s.

Money was spent on this production which uses French, German and Russian or Ukrainian actors. There are plenty of extras, car chases, location shots and sets. It's a shame more thought wasn't given to the storylines and the believability of them.

The episodes are 90 minutes each and at that length, have to be filled with some dross. They could have compressed into 50 minutes and might have had a chance at another season.

The acting was competent but the actors were struggling against caricaturisation and a wonky script. They couldn't do any better than they did.

This is only worth watching during lockdown.
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