A really good Netflix series: The Defeated. Set in Berlin in the immediate aftermath of World War II, it provides an evocative portrayal of a city struggling to cope with a desperate lack of law and order. The city has four sectors, one each controlled by the occupying powers: America, Britain, France and the Soviet Union. A New York detective has volunteered to work with the police force in the American sector as an adviser, although he has a personal mission: to find his brother, an American soldier who went missing in the last days of the war.
Detective Max teams up with Elsie, the German police Superintendent and they come across a mysterious man called the Angel Maker, who recruits young girls to elicit information from the occupying soldiers in whatever way works, and passes this intelligence to whoever pays best. This organisation appears to be responsible for the murder of two US soldiers and so the hunt becomes intense. Elsie also has a private mission: to find her husband, a German soldier who has been captured by the Soviets.
The plot is convoluted; it turns out Max's brother Moritz, traumatised by his experience of liberating one of the Nazi concentration camps, is on a personal mission to torture and kill as many high level Nazis as he can. I'm not going to spoil any further; there are 8 episodes and a second season is in the pipeline, delayed by the pandemic. It's really well produced and has no flaws, to my mind.
The same cannot be said of another Netflix series, The Fall. It's a psychological thriller in three seasons of 5, 6 and 6 episodes, set in Belfast and originally aired on the BBC and RTE in 2013-2016. A Detective Superintendent from the Metropolitan Police is seconded to the Police Service of Northern Ireland to review the progress of an ongoing murder investigation. It becomes apparent that there are other, similar cases and it metamorphoses into a hunt for a serial killer with a penchant for particularly perverted attacks.
The first problem encountered is that we are told very early in season 1 who the murderer is and the narrative then morphs from a standard police procedural into an examination of the psychology of the killer, with long, slow close-ups of anguished faces. This is balanced by the frankly odd lifestyle and rogue methodology of the lead detective and she is subjected to a similar pseudo psychological examination by camera and sound track. The result is that the plot moves along slowly - and frustratingly, given that we have knowledge the police don't. The worst part is that, in order to keep us interested, a number of sub-plots are inserted and some of these - the killer's 15 year old babysitter and the detective's recruitment of young, attractive male colleagues onto the team for her own pleasure - are superfluous and unpleasantly voyeuristic. There is a definite undertone of misandry in the treatment.
By the end of season 2 and continuing into the (hopefully) final season, the plot has run out of steam and improbable twists occur. There is so little narrative left that there are long, tedious psychiatric sessions with facial close-ups, a nurse who looks very much like one of the victims and who cares, in a way lovingly it is teasingly suggested, for the killer in hospital and almost nothing happens. I suppose psychological dramas are supposed to be uncomfortable for the viewer but, for my taste, this tries too hard.
Finally, and much more satisfyingly, to season 3 of Succession. A superior family soap opera based in corporate America, the cast largely speaks management gibberish very fast but somehow it's fun. There is literally not one character with whom I can in any way empathise. I hate them all but not necessarily equally; that changes by the minute with the show's fast moving direction. There's a plot of sorts but it's all about the characters, which are well drawn and well acted. catch it on Sky Atlantic.
