Really Surprised!

Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Best movie ever!

I started watching the show mostly to get a glimpse into Denmark. I'm sure their TV programs aren't exactly like real life the same way as American shows. However, the scenery and language and social ways can be observed and enjoyed.Over time I have grown to dislike Dicte herself more and more. She lies constantly. Being a reporter, one would expect her to be somewhat pushy, but she fearlessly barges through life like a bull in a china shop, not caring what or who she hurts along the way. She showed how far she can go when, after being warned by Wagner (in season 3) to not act on her emotions and interfere with the negotiations, she did just that and caused great harm (I won't spill all the beans). Now one of the best characters is gone. And now I really despise the Dicte character.Someone pointed out to me that Netflix likes shows where there are no good guys, where even the supposedly "good" ones have their dark sides. This show epitomizes that. I will probably watch the next episode to see what Dicte does next, but I'm not hopeful that I'll find it worth watching anymore after that.

Workmanlike Danish crime/human interest drama that ticks pretty much all the boxes we've come to expect. Young (-ish = late 30s/40s) professional female protagonist, check. Hipper and funkier than other people her age, as against more conventional friends and co-workers who seem occasionally bemused or irritated with her behavior, check and check. With her career, has to juggle raising one or two children more or less alone, and then a mystery crops up, check. Old boyfriend or ex-husband lurking around for color, check. Bad guys, if any, most likely to be right-wing, religious, or foreigners, check. A cast with familiar faces such as Iben Hjelje (from "Dag,") Laerke Winther Andersen ("Den som draeber," "Bankelot"), Dar Salim ("Broen," "Borgen," "Livvagterne," "Game of Thrones,") and Lars Brygmann ("Borgen," "Bankerot," "Rejseholdet") has crewed the show through three seasons now, very watchably. If you are not already a Nordic drama fan, this show is unlikely to win you over; if you are, however, you will enjoy it.

Dicte Svendsen is a flawed character. There is some expository back story regarding her rotten relationship with her parents, an illegitimate son she was forced to give up, and a cheating spouse — all of which are meant to explain her poor sense of morals; willingness to steal, lie, and cheat from her friends and work colleagues; and lead a life of loose responsibility. If the series had any obligation to reality, she should have been killed by Bosnian baby-traffickers in episode two. Not a particularly flattering picture of Denmark and its inhabitants emerges from this series. Very few of the actors would be considered attractive but that is not as much of an issue as it is say for American TV. Even when we have dirty cops or reporters they are or look like Jennifer Lopez or Ryan Eggold. There are some interesting plot lines focusing on politics,incest, blackmail, organ theft, immigration. prostitution, and sports fixing among others. And through it all, Dicte and her two friends share booze and have affairs with a variety of men. Let's say to be current (2016) that this isn't the Denmark Bernie Sanders would reference on the campaign trail. It's all in Danish with subtitles and it's clear by the dialogue that the PC police aren't monitoring Danish TV. Worth a look for the curious. Six and a half stars.

Dicte is more a soap opera than a detective/crime/journalism series. At least that's how I felt. There is a lot of family and friend drama, lots of cheating, sleeping around, etc. packed into one season. It seems that everything in the town that is worth a big story happens to Dicte, or right where she is, or to someone she knows, etc. Perhaps the town is too small. Or perhaps we are to appreciate that time passes between each story (two episodes each) so other, perhaps important, things have happened but Dicte wasn't there to poke her nose in. Regardless, many of the story lines seem contrived. But perhaps the one thing that really bothered me was the whole season seemed like a pro-life advertisement. Of course, this is done in a Danish, liberal sort of way, but still there is this overwhelming subliminal message (ok, not so subliminal...) that giving away your newborn is bad, that abortion is bad, that mothers who have to make these choices are, well, not good. And of course, all homes for children are bad, full of adults who want to abuse the children... In a way, the series can be interpreted as positive in many aspects regarding these issues (as Dicte is a good mother, despite the fact that she did give away her first born after being forced to by her religious parents) but somehow every time it tried to give some great message about babies and mothers, it seemed judgmental to me. Maybe something got lost in translation, or maybe, as someone suggested, the writing was not great to begin with. The series could have been more brooding and realistic if the chose to show the lives of some of the other characters, like the lonely detective, Wagner, but it seems like they wanted to keep the show more mainstream. Congrats for having a female gay character who actually has a healthy dating life and is not afraid to talk about it, but again, more on that would have been great.All in all, Dicte is not at the same level with Wallander, for example, mostly due to the contrived stories and some weird thematic choices. The acting is actually descent, sometimes much better than descent, but the writing certainly has a long way to go.