The thirty-fourth TV show: #595 Rejseholdet
Our first Danish crime show. For some reason, Scandinavian crime shows have gained a good reputation in the past two decades and it seems that this show (Unit One) has helped with that. They, first of all, have interesting weekly (or sometimes two part) crime stories, based on real life cases from a team that gets called in when regular investigators havve trouble figuring out a murder. On top of that, however, some light serialization is applied. No on going cases, as you see more often these days, but there are occasional callbacks to earlier places - especially well done in a second season episode where the defending lawyer in a trial from an earlier season is called in.
More notable, and interesting, is that the personal storylines carry on through. Unfortunately a lot of it seems to come down to different marital and relationship problems, but at least it tries to vary them occasionally. The lead's storyline, Inge, is the most interesting. She becomes the leader of the unit and the first woman to do so. The first season then starts a storyline about balancing work and family, with a supporting husband, son and adopted child. This all changes when, near the end of the first season, the husband dies following a hit and run incident. It's heavy stuff, and takes it time to explore without getting too dramatic.
Then there are the internal relationships, which is what make the show entertaining. While they start off frosty - with the newcomer getting scorn - but the length of the episode allows for a lot of time to explore that. The crime is more than just a setting, but it makes it more interesting for sure. We're not quite done with the show yet, but we'll certainly continue it.