Review: Time travel and murder combine in HBO’s riveting Beforeigners series

Beforeigners trailer.

Two police detectives from wildly different time periods must learn to work together to solve a murder in Beforeigners, a riveting blend of science fiction and police procedural from HBO Europe that is already poised to become one of the standout shows of the year. Like Netflix's Ragnarok, it is a Norwegian TV series that draws heavily on the history and mythology of the region. But Beforeigners eschews the supernatural, and the campier teen soap elements, to deliver a thoughtful, moving, and often quite ribald and funny tale of various worlds colliding.

(Some spoilers below, but no major reveals.)

Series creators Eilif Skodvin and Anne Bjirnstad wanted to follow up their successful series Lilyhammer with a science fiction story built around the idea of refugees arriving from different historical periods rather than different countries, and they combined the concept with a hard-boiled murder mystery. They've cited District 9 and The Leftovers among their influences, along with classic novels like Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and George Orwell's 1984.

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