Streaming series review - SOKO Linz

SOKO Linz: Season One *** (out of 5) This long-running Austrian police procedural follows a special unit of the Linz police force dedicated to major crimes. SOKO is a shortened form of Sonderkommission, which means “special investigative team”. The tone of these shows is similar to our Law and Order series, with rather somber, matter-of-fact scripts, spending relatively little time on the personal lives of the protagonists. This is one of several SOKO series, each set in a different city with a different set of cops, like Germany’s Tatort or our own CSI franchises.

The lead detectives are Johanna (Katharina Haizinger) and Ben (Daniel Gawlowski). Their boss is Nele (Anna Hausberg), and their youngest member is Aleks (Damyan Andrev) who provides a dimension of enthusiasm to the efforts of the veterans. Medical examiner Richie (Alexander Pschill) adds some eccentricities to the mix. Each hourlong episode is a separate crime, with virtually no carryover. The first involves the murder of a woman the Geman police sent to Linz under their witness protection program. The mystery is whether she was killed in retaliation for her testimony there, or due to something that went wrong in her new life and identity. The second revolves around the fate of one who designed software for a super-pervasive facial recognition program that he now regrets, since it might invade way too much privacy in the wrong hands. Frankly, this one confused me a bit, but tech is mostly out of my wheelhouse. The third dives deep into social issues of international dug and human trafficking, including baby-selling, in a morally complex set of events.

Among the other eight sets of murders for our little team to unravel, a brilliant student in cutting-edge AI is bumped off just before leaving for a big-time job in the US. A new murder in the stye of a convicted serial killer raises questions as to whether it’s a copycat, or proof that they jailed the wrong guy. The next stiff is the much younger hubby of a rich middle-aged woman, found on one of the boats he sells. That’s followed by the murder of a renowned classical conductor/cellist on the eve of a concert that could make or break the careers of the students comprising his chamber quartet.

My favorites begin with a Nazi hooligan found dead at a bus stop, involving the plight of a family who tried to quit the gang, only to be harassed for years. The last begins with the killing of a woman who’d opened a pole-dancing studio to empower women who had been stuck in abusive relationships. As one might expect, that didn’t set well with many of the locals for “moral” or chauvinistic reasons.

All the scripts are solid. The lead characters are easy to like. This is the first of four seasons that have already aired abroad, and likely to continue. Since the episodes are stand-alone crimes, they can be watched at leisure, with no advantage to bingeing. I’d expect more of the existing 49 episodes to follow these to our side of the Atlantic in due course.

(SOKO Linz, in German with subtitles, streams on MHz Choice as of 5/26/26)