The only reason I watched this was because of Monaghan, who can be equally humane and hilarious given the right role. Slow-moving, bad dialogue (Splitting between Swedish and English was annoying), and just not interesting. But the real killer was Dominic's attempts at different American accents. I could have bought him as a cop, but the queasy New Yawker act was just brutal. It was kind of like if Kaley Cuoco tried to play an English woman: It was cute for the first ten minutes but then just became painfully awkward. Stick to sci-fi and comedy, Dom.

This series mimics the Scandi detective genre -- unsuccessfully. The characters are superficial mongrels possessing traits, flaws and back stories that look like they've been selected from a cheap 'write your own Scandi detective show' manual. Shallow in every respect -- the characterisations of the main detectives and the boss are cringe-worthy. The acting is abysmal too -- but given the script there's not much scope to demonstrate any real acting talent. No insights to be gained from watching this. Dreadful.

Yet another attempt at matching the heights of The Bridge and The Killing, with that greyed effect film and Swedish countryside. But, these days writers seem to think that the way to succeed is to come up with more and more outrageous plots. This one involves a serial killer (or killers) who buries his victims alive and then digs them up again. Because serial killers are deranged by definition we're supposed to buy this as plausible but it just seems convoluted and absurd to me. I've wondered for a long time why America hires British actors to play Americans. I wondered if it was because they don't think their own actors are any good? But in 100 Code, a British actor (Monaghan) uses the cliché New York American accent and sounds just like someone doing a poor New York accent. It grates every time he speaks and makes it hard to watch the show. I'm a fan of Nyqvist, but so far his character seems underdeveloped and emotionless. When will America start making good dramas for real adult viewers again?

This Easter I watched the first three episodes of the 100 Code on HBO Nordic. HBO usually delivers high-quality. Over the years I have enjoyed excellent series, such as The Wire and the recently released (in Scandinavia) first season of True Detective.100 Code is probably my biggest disappointment so far and totally wasted time. Being shot in Stockholm it is supposedly going to capture a Swedish context, which it largely fails to. In my assessment (as Swedish by birth and ethnicity), the 100 Code brings out the biggest clichés about Sweden in order to sell it to an American or international audience.The actors are poor including the "small guy" American detective. Michael Nyqvist is the only exception, in trying to raise this series to a higher level. In vain though, as the other actors are so poor by any standards. A pity for Swedish film industry that has done, and can do so much better. As one plus (raising my vote to 2) is that it qualifies under the Swedish label of a "kalkonfilm", i.e. a production that is so cheesy it can even be amusing.