Fatally Uneven! [Spoilers!]

I just saw "Carambole" again on Mhz's "International Mystery" series, and I'm glad this board has been gathering dust for almost ten years waiting for my comment.

Except for a few action-oriented programs, almost all of the contemporary European mystery/detective/police series focus on the characters and their personal relationships and struggles; the crimes, cases, and mysteries keep the plot moving along, but they're not cut-and-dried police-procedural stories.

It's OK with me if the producers/writers aspire to make stories that are more about the characters than the crimes/mystery elements. But it's too bad that they often short-change the police/crime foundation of the story, and settle for one-dimensional criminals, idiotic police officers, and abrupt and sometimes confusing or ambiguous endings.

In "Carambole", the dark personal tragedy that Van Veeteren suffers is well-presented and acted.

But the behavior of both the killer and blackmailer, for starters, is simply preposterous and unbelievable throughout. The killer is supposedly so shaken up and in an increasing rage-driven panic and despair that he keeps killing on pure impulse-- yet in the end he figures out a clever, intricate plan to trap and lure the blackmailer to his doom.

But when he miraculously brings off his plan, he goes from calculating to crazy again: he approaches (he thinks) the blackmailer as if he's certain that the blackmailer is unarmed and defenseless.

How could he be sure his intended victim wasn't skilled in self-defense, or armed? His previous victims were either accidental or caught off guard, but the blackmailer had every reason to be wary and on guard.

Also, the "real" police in this episode are simply pathetic. Despite Münster's claim that he's "in charge", all he and Moreno do is tag along after Van Veeteren like children, and at the end literally run after him like idiots.

The writers really botched their handling of the crime story by resorting to the lazy and overused device of just killing off one person after another; by the end, it's like "Hamlet"-- bodies everywhere.

This means that by the time they got to the climax of the crime/mystery part of the plot, there was no one left alive to tie up all of the loose ends. I felt cheated and unsatisfied by all of the pathos and bloodshed.

Unfortunately, the weakness and sloppiness of the crime/mystery elements overwhelmed the well-presented story of personal tragedy.