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Mentioned some weeks ago on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Netflix began streaming a new Nordic noir Detective Hole and, being fans of Nordic noir, my sweetie-wife and I gave the series a go. And, after four out of nine episodes, we have let the show do its merry way unconcerned with its resolution.

Working Title Television

Detective Harry Hole is a haunted alcoholic detective in Norway trying to live down killing his partner in a drunken car crash while in hot pursuit of a murderous bank robber. Now, with a new partner, a new significant other, and trying to stay on the wagon, Hole is presented with a fresh set of crises, his new partner is murdered while trying to locate a low-level drug dealer and a serial killer is stalking the streets of Oslo, pushing Hole back into the bottle and off the force.

That single paragraph synopsis could be for almost a countless number of second-rate, trope-filled, cliche-riddled police procedurals of which Detective Hole is merely a foreign language example.In addition to the stock characters, settings, and situations the series presents with a nearly comical lack of understanding of modern forensic work and evidence.

When Hole’s partner was killed, it was an on-screen scene so we the audience know that the murderer was in actuality fellow detective Waller who was the low-level drug dealer’s upper management. Waller shot the dealer in the stomach, then pursued the partner who had witnessed it, fought with her, put her in a sleeper chokehold, before arranging for the still dying dealer to be holding the pistol that killed the partner. Waller then presented himself as the heroic cop who came in just too late to save her fellow officer, shooting and killing the dealer.

None of the physical evidence supports such an outlandish lie. The dealer has a gunshot to the stomach which bled for several minutes into his abdominal cavity before being killed by a shot to the head. He also would present with no bruising, scratches, or any other signs of a life and death struggle which the dead partner does, or at least would, have.

I grumbled and, not happily, let them have that however that bit of silliness, but it got far, far worse.

Investigating the serial killer, Hole asks the forensic team if the same pistol was used to kill both women and he is told that it is ‘very difficult’ to determine if the same gun fired both rounds.

What the actual fork? Are the writers so ignorant of modern police procedures that they are unaware of rifling? That the grooves of a gun barrel are like a firearm’s fingerprints?

Unwilling to let their absurdity rest there the creatives, in addition to the serial killer sub-plot, the crooked cop sub-plot, and the cliched drunk cop plot, added yet another layer, a secret society of cops and politicians flooding the streets with weapons, provoking gangland warfare so that regulations would be changed allowing police to go about armed.

That was too much for me and my sweetie-wife, there are far better shows to watch.