Dogs of Berlin: Two Detectives, No Clean Hands

A case nobody gets to keep tidy

The football connection gives the investigation a public life from the start. People who have never met the victim have an interest in what his death means. The police need answers, but they are not the only people trying to control the story.

That pressure suits Christian Alvart's series. It moves between places where the same event has different consequences: a police office, a household, a criminal organisation, the world around the game. You can follow the investigation while seeing why others might prefer a different question to be asked.

I like that breadth. The show doesn't make the rest of Berlin wait politely while two detectives work through their suspect list. Other people have urgent business of their own, and the case arrives in the middle of it.

Kurt Grimmer is part of the problem

Felix Kramer is terrific as Grimmer. He has a heavy, impatient presence and the confidence of a man who would rather push a problem aside than explain it. The gambling and compromised connections aren't decorative flaws attached to an otherwise reassuring hero. They affect what he wants from a situation.

That makes him much more interesting than a detective who occasionally breaks a rule to obtain the right result. His professional judgement and his private needs occupy the same room. You have to pay attention to both.

Kramer makes the character watchable without making him comfortable. A flash of charm can sit very close to irritation, and there is often a sense that he has already started looking for a way out while someone else is still talking. I believe this man could persuade people to give him another chance. I also understand why they might regret it.

His family life adds to that feeling. Being someone's husband or father doesn't put a clean boundary around the behaviour he brings home. The people around him have to live with the uncertainty, rather than appearing only when the plot needs to remind us he has something to lose.

Erol isn't there to applaud him

Fahri Yardım plays Erol Birkan, and the partnership gives the series a second strong centre. Erol has his own history and pressures. He isn't simply the reasonable colleague assigned to make Grimmer look entertaining.

Yardım brings a more controlled quality to their scenes. He can make listening look active: assessing what has been said, what hasn't, and whether the person opposite him is worth trusting. It is an effective contrast with Kramer's more forceful presence.

The friction between them feels useful because it comes from genuinely different positions. They don't merely disagree about whether to shout at a suspect. They have different relationships with the institution employing them and with the people the case brings into view.

I enjoy watching two capable actors hold that discomfort. There is no need to hurry them towards an easy friendship. Having to do a job together is already enough reason to keep putting them in the same space.

The people outside the police station

The criminal world has its own layers of authority. There are people making decisions, people hoping to be trusted with more, and people who have to absorb the consequences. Family can offer protection while also making it much harder to step away.

Those relationships are a major strength. The gang members don't spend every scene explaining how dangerous they are. Status appears in who gets listened to, who can interrupt and who has to swallow an insult. An apparently small exchange can tell you quite a lot about the next person's options.

The younger characters give the wider story particular energy. Ambition doesn't always look like a plan. Sometimes it is the wish to be noticed, to earn something, or to escape being treated as insignificant. That is recognisable, and it makes the pressures around them more convincing.

This is where the show feels real to me. Not because every event should be taken as a statement about Berlin, but because the people have wants that make sense within the lives we see. Their decisions belong to them, including the bad ones.

A city with rough edges

Dogs of Berlin has little interest in presenting a flattering city break. The streets, flats and working spaces feel close to the people occupying them. There is a sense of lives pressing against one another rather than a collection of attractive locations for detectives to walk through.

The energy can be aggressive. The series is violent, and it is willing to stay with unpleasant behaviour. It also has a dark sense of humour, particularly when somebody's confidence runs ahead of their ability to manage the situation.

That humour helps. People can be frightening and ridiculous, sometimes in the same conversation. The show doesn't have to choose one permanent tone for everyone it introduces, and the writing is livelier for it.

Alvart keeps the different strands moving with purpose. There is a lot going on, but the appeal isn't just the next revelation. I want to see how these particular people react when the room gets smaller and the available choices become worse.

Give it the original voices

I watched with subtitles, and that is how I would recommend it. Kramer's delivery is part of Grimmer's presence, just as Yardım's restraint is part of Erol's. Reading a line while hearing the way an actor delivers it soon becomes ordinary.

The language isn't an obstacle to the story. The important things are clear: who wants something, who is under pressure and who is pretending not to be. You don't need to know Berlin to recognise an awkward silence or a man trying to sell an explanation he has only just invented.

If you tend to stay with English-language television, this is one worth stepping outside it for. The pleasure is meeting a different set of characters in a place that feels specific, not watching a familiar police series with its signs translated.

I would gladly have watched more

There is only one released season, and I would have liked another. Ten episodes give the cast and the city enough room to make a strong impression, but they also leave me interested in spending more time here.

That doesn't weaken my recommendation for what exists. The series has more personality and better character work than plenty of crime dramas that have been allowed to run for years. Its best passages have the confidence and grip I associate with the shows near the top of my list.

What I value most is the refusal to make everyone presentable. The people can be selfish, compromised, funny and perceptive without the script stopping to tidy them up for us. That makes the story involving. I don't have to approve of somebody to want to know what they will do next.