Streaming TV series review - The Dark Heart

The Dark Heart ** (out of 5) (NR) Thanks to Covid and streaming (not necessarily in that order), I’ve had the chance to review a goodly number of Scandinavian TV mystery and procedural series in the past few years, and enjoyed, to varying degrees, almost all of what they offered. Unfortunately, this miniseries from Sweden is not a new addition to that list. The premise is reasonable, but the execution is quite disappointing.

The protagonist is Tanja, a well-intentioned, unappreciated woman who heads a volunteer organization to locate missing persons when the police have come up empty. As expected, the cops mostly resent such amateur sleuths at their elbows. They might contaminate crime scenes, compromise clues and ruin what might be learned from witnesses. Even worse, they might find the elusive party and make the cops look bad.

The story centers on a wealthy old farmer who is an asshole to his neighbors, tenants and daughters. One has moved to the city. The other returns from college with a forestry degree, loads of bright-eyed enthusiasm, and plenty of ideas to modernize and expand the family business. He coldly dismisses them all, forcing her to work there on his oppressive terms. She also has a fling with a neighboring farmer that her dad had banished from his property. The old jerk disappears. Two years later, the city sister calls on Tanja for help. The other sister has been struggling to run the farm because dad’s assets have been frozen until he reappears, or his body turns up. OK so far.

The drama plays out over five episodes (nearly four hours) in which there’s not really anyone to root for. The girl running the farm is a sympathetic figure at the beginning, but loses that by so many of her attitudes and actions the rest of the way. Tanja is on the margins for most of the screen time, but her idea of how to investigate is stupid and dangerous, undermining the degree to which we may remain in her corner. The title should be pluralized, since it describes most of the characters who get most of the face time.

The slow-moving plot is rather hard to follow as the action shifts frequently among time periods from the onset, to various nonsequential moments over the next two years, to their present. Much of the suspense is whittled away as events unfold; other aspects are dulled by the way the principles conduct themselves. Not a formula for prolonged engagement and investment in the outcome, though the product is still somewhat intriguing. Since the episodes are being released sequentially, waiting until you can binge all five might help in following the plot and character arcs.

(The Dark Heart, in Swedish with subtitles, begins streaming on Topic 9/29/22 with two episodes, followed by weekly release of the other three.)