The Valhalla Murders – Episodes 5 & 6

Hang on tight, as the five minutes fly by in a flash; throughout these episodes the pacing and tension is a masterclass. You get the sense there’s no time to waste as we rush onwards to the conclusion. There’s a furious and physical confrontation between Kata and son Kari. She’s now desperate to know if he was involved with the rape of Telma. Despite this she still throws away his hoodie. Arnar wants to know if Kata is up to the job and if he can rely on her, but both of them are very distracted with major family drama brewing.

Petur the State Prosecutor shows up again, contrite and admitting his negligence to Kata in not investigating the boys home reports properly, saying he’ll do all he can to help. You get the distinct impression he’s only there because he’s worried about his reputation. I’m pretty sure he’d never repeat this publicly.

Tommi’s DNA proves what we suspected from episode 1 – he is the cold case skeleton, murdered 30 years ago. He never did manage to escape Valhalla. The search for Steinthor gears up. He’s gone to ground, even before the media name him as the prime suspect. You’d be surprised how many small silver Toyotas have had a prang and their front panel replaced with a red one. Maybe two-colour repair jobs are an Icelandic thing? When Kata does find the garage where the car is hidden, the place is clearly also being used as the murder’s base and there’s a lot of information to be found in there.

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'Sacred Games' – Netflix

The hero of Netflix’s first Indian drama is Sartaj Singh (played by Saif Ali Khan) who cuts a rather lonely figure. He’s a honest and honorable detective who refuses to be intimidated by his corrupt colleagues in Mumbai’s police force. Probably because he refuses to tow the line he’s never landed a big case. He’s trapped in a corrupt system with no way out. In good cop show style, he’s unhappily divorced, scarred, gaining weight and taking medication for anxiety. No wonder as he’s under immense pressure from his station chief to lie under oath about a unarmed teenager shot down right in front of him.
This seems like more than enough to be dealing with, but no. Right from the outset Sacred Games is a game to be played by two. His opponent is Ganesh Gaitonde (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), a notorious gangster and a fugitive in hiding for 15 years. He makes contact with Sartaj out of the blue seemingly to spill his guts about his extraordinary life.  He also has a cryptic warning. Mubai’s time is numbered – there’s 25 days until the whole city is destroyed. Is he threatening the city both men say they love or is he tipping Sartaj off in the hope of saving them all? His personal god complex is clear; his first words to Sartaj are “Do you believe in God?”, but after all he’s been through he thinks he might really be immortal. And the way the show sets him up, he really could be.
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'Hard Sun' Episodes 1 & 2 – BBC1

After the mauling that The Guardian gave BBC1’s new cop show/ sci-fi drama you’d be forgiven for thinking the BBC were presenting a badly-written festive pantomime like A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong . This was the tone of the preview published at 11am yesterday. The actual 4 star review landed a few hours later calling it gutsy and ambitious. Same newspaper, very different opinion. Great work guys – don’t make up your mind about something, teach the controversy.
So safe to say this end-of-the-world drama written by Neil Cross of Luther fame is polarising opinions. Twitter seemed suitably impressed and a lot of people were very happy to realise the series was all set ready to binge on iPlayer. We put the second episode on straight away but now I’m not sure how much more of it I want to see.
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'Shetland' – On the Box

Back in 2013 the Beeb had a go at capturing the Scandi noir spirit with a drama set slightly closer to home than the usual Sweden/ Denmark heartland. When I say slightly, I mean only very slightly because this dark drama is set in Shetland. They might speak the language and you can fly to Glasgow in 90 minutes, but the place has much more in common with Scandinavia than Scotland. Famously the islands didn’t become part of Scotland until the 15th century and that remoteness lingers in the traditions and the outlook of the people.
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