Trailer available here

Was it intentional for the two main characters, brother and sister duo, to be called Live and Odd in this Norwegian Netflix production? If not then that makes it all the better because the way that people do just live, even when they should be dead, in Skarnes is indeed very odd.

This show was actually a brilliant combination of “huh what the heckers is going on here?” and comedic moments as well. That blend is so often missing from shows as they try to either be super hard on the comedy or on the darkness and whilst this show certainly had the production of dark and gritty with the colour palette and vibrancy done during filming and post-production

If you cannot tell from the name of the show, the whole concept is that people seem to die and then bam they just seem to wake up and be very much alive again. A bit of a problem for Live and Odd as they try to take over the family funeral business but only made possible for them to be this duo by Live herself being one of the people that seemed to be very much dead, in a field found by police, then alive again.

It is very quickly clear that this experience has changed all these people; Not just mentally, as you would expect, but in other ways too. Their senses are heightened, they crave certain things and physically you can see differences in them too. It seems very much like a complete mystery, but as the trailer suggests, this has been happening for a very long time and the how and the why quickly comes to be unravelled and explained or at least for those in the know. For those not in the know it is a very peculiar set of events that increasingly puts them on edge and allows for those comedy relief moments in between.

This isn’t the sort of show they are able to do a second season of because it just wouldn’t really make sense. The ending of this show didn’t leave any cliffhangers or burning questions and the nature of the plot wouldn’t really lend itself to a second season but if they could find a way to make it work then I would be overjoyed. The writing, production, actors playing the characters, everything just slotted together to make this an enjoyable watch. Netflix things are so often hit or miss but, as is often the case, this being something that is specifically one season long really allowed for it to be honed in on and perfected and it shows. Of course if you aren’t fluent in Norwegian you are going to need to watch this dubbed or subbed but for once the subbed version is also done well so it doesn’t feel completely generic and lifeless but instead with accents and in keeping with the origins of the show.