My wife discovered this Welsh series via Netflix and started watching. I didn't watch at first mainly because of time. Each of the 25 episodes is 90 minutes and, with everything going on, I'm down to about an hour of TV a day. To watch Hinterland meant I'd have to carve out an additional thirty minutes. So I begged off.
But she continued through the four episodes of season 1, liking each episode more than the last. The story centers on Detective Chief Inspector Tom Mathias (Richard Harrington) as he tries to pick up the pieces of his life in the small town of Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, Wales. The something isn't really explained, but that's not really the issue. He is partnered with Detective Inspector Mared Rhys (Mali Harries) and a couple of subordinates.
The Big Town Cop who goes to a small town thing is common in many TV shows and books so there's nothing new here. But Harrington is remarkable at playing Mathias as simultaneously troubled and brilliant, invasive and compassionate. He genuinely cares for the victims he encounters and wants to help them reach a resolution, even if doing so is not exactly according to the letter of the law.
As his partner and local girl, Harries plays Detective Rhys as a good-hearted person, trying her best to raise her teenaged daughter on her own. The pair of detectives on the team--Alex Harries as Detective Constable Lloyd Elis and Hannah Daniel as Detective Sergeant Siân Owen--serve their purpose to find clues and pass them on to Mathias and Rhys. And there is Chief Superintendent Brian Prosser (Aneirin Hughes) who took on Mathias but might have a different agenda than he's letting on.
My wife kept pressing me to watch the series. She played a couple of trump cards: Hinterland reminded her of Wallander (Kevin Branagh) and The Missing (Tchéky Karyo). With that kind of recommendation, I started watching at episode 1, season 2.
And I was hooked.
Everything she said about Mathias is dead on. I was instantly drawn to his character, especially the compassionate part. The stories are engrossing and rarely did I see the ending coming.
I have to comment on the landscape. Wales is an interesting place and half the fun of watching this show are the long shots when you see a car driving along the roads. It also looks quite cold. Interestingly, this show is part of an initiative to bring more Welsh shows on TV. Every scene is filmed twice and the actors perform in both English and Welsh. Which brings up another fun side project: seeing which scene doesn't need to be re-filmed.
Literally, as I write this, I have NOT seen the last episode. After the penultimate episode--which features a remarkable secondary character in the form of an elderly woman out on a farm--my wife highly suggested I watch episode 1, season 1 (which is seemingly to play into the series finale). I did that last night. Heck, I'll probably watch the other three episodes of season 1, too.
So, Hinterland, no matter how the series ends, gets a high recommendation from me.
Have you see it?
Update:
Last night, I watched the series finale. Just like The X-files or Castle, there is a larger, over-arching thread that runs through the entire series...and it paid off in the last episode. There was a moment, two actually, in which Mathias's personal character is mentioned. The first is when he learns the truth. The second is something another character commented on. It comes toward the end of the episode and it speaks directly how and why Mathias does what he does when being a detective.
Wonderful show, wonderful ending. I told my wife that I almost wish Hinterland were an American show because then we'd get at least twenty episodes. I definitely would love more from this character and series. Alas, with the third series now four years in the past, it is unlikely to happen, but we have a marvelous show to watch.
Not sure what our next show will be. Any suggestions?
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