Paranoid is an eight-episode British-German crime drama, with the last few episodes being original Netflix content.
The series starts with the murder of a female general practitioner in broad daylight at a crowded park, and follows the Woodmere police working to solve the case. There are scenes that take place in England and Germany.
The series was mostly just talking scenes, very little of any of the episodes were focused on action or world-building.
With a focus on the all-too-messed-up relationships that do not advance the plot in the slightest, it illustrated to the viewer the bad writing of the show that was driving it.
The lead police officer, Nina, played by Indira Varma (Ellaria Sand from Game of Thrones), had the capacity to be a strong lead, but fell short. Unable to differentiate work and play, she spent all her time bullying her partner, Alec (Dino Fetscher), and then toying with his feelings. Rebounding from her four-year relationship, Nina hooks up with her partner, and upon realizing she is pregnant, she runs back to the man that caused her heartache in the first place.
Watching Nina self-destruct was not what was I expecting to see when the show was branded as a crime drama. I would rather have seen her remain independent, raising her baby all on her own.
Nina and Alec’s relationship revolved around her apologizing for being bitchy to him and the two of them firing insults back and forth that should have been funny, but just sounded uncouth.
It was unbelievably hard to move past the web of abusive relationships and get into the core of the show, which was the murder investigation.
The few action shots in the series were interesting but their value was lost in the lack of time spent on them and the sea of bad acting. The best part of the show had to have been the ironic symbolism in the Jesus statue made completely out of pills.
If you like watching pointless drama unfold, I would highly recommend watching the show. Otherwise, avoid wasting your time listening to people be angry at each other for no reason.
