SEASON 1
Groups of people from three eras in the past are suddenly appearing in Oslo and elsewhere in the world. The appearance of the corpse of a woman, one of those "visitors", generates a complex police investigation.
Beforeigners cleverly and with abundant doses of biting, ironic and colorful humor face the problems that arise with these "visitors" who are being incorporated into Norwegian society. In this way, immigration, multiculturalism, sects, fundamentalisms, westernization, xenophobia (and the list goes on) are approached from a highly original approach and with a great deployment of "period" production.
But all this constitutes the social framework of the police investigation of the murder, carried out by a charismatic pair of detectives: Lars Haaland, a current Norwegian (Nicolai Cleve Broch) and Alfhildr Enginnsdóttir, an "updated" Viking (the Finnish Krista Kosonen). His private life and complex research, then, will necessarily interact with all those cultural sectors.
Beforeigners is then a successful hybrid of police, social comedy and fantasy.
SEASON 2
Summary
At times darker and more serious than season 1, however, at times, it recovers its characteristic sharp humor and self-confidence and continues to develop its original and satirical look at multiculturalism (the result of the presence of authentic Viking time travelers in the present), the personal story of its protagonist Viking detective (a sort of Scandinavian Tilda Swinton) and the science fiction tale that underlies and frames the series.
Review
A series of murders of women leads the Norwegian police to request the collaboration of the British police, represented by an Afro-descendant detective and an Orthodox Jewish detective, as the murderer is suspected of being an English time traveler.
This is just one of the tips of the new season of that original Norwegian police series. Added to that narrative line are the claims of Olav, a Viking time traveler (the Norwegian Tobias Santelmann) to gain access to the throne of Norway helped by a lesbian volva (Viking sorceress) (the Swedish Hedda Stiernstedt) and the adventures of the Viking detective Alfhildr Enginnsdóttir (the Finnish Krista Kosonen, a sort of Scandinavian Tilda Swinton), linked to her character as a time traveler, who assumes a clear portagonism in the series over that of her partner Detective Haaland (the Norwegian Nicolai Cleve Broch), very busy with his role as father. Regardless, the two continue to work together and make up one of the sexiest detective couples in recent years.
The series' original focus on multiculturalism then focuses on the Vikings, losing some of the variety it had in season 1. Fortunately, every time it runs the risk of becoming a linear tale on one of its narrative lines, stagnating or lose your way, the script invigorates the other subplots and adds new layers to all of them.
Although the commitment to the combination of genres is still valid, this season the tone becomes at times more serious and darker than in the first, although it does not take long to sow the journey with its characteristic ironic humor and self-confidence. On the other hand, it takes up and enhances its side of a science fiction story, in this sense providing a chapter of enormous power, almost a movie in itself.
