This year, zlín is expanding the map of places where people unexpectedly die on TV screens. At least in the field of crime fiction. Josef Ptáčník, the protagonist of the new twelve-part series Místo činu Zlín, head of the local murder party, has an explanation for this. As he notes at the end of the fourth episode, called Déjà vu: “All organized crime has its roots in Zlín.”
In the same section, Ptáčník’s new colleague and old acquaintance Lucie Veselá comments on the nature of this East Moravian city in a much more expressive way. She returned here from České Budějovice as his deputy. After barely getting out of a elaborate situation alive, she exclaims with a mixture of anger, horror and relief: “Damn Zlín.”
The heightened emotions are related to the return of the past. In the series, which Czech Television starts broadcasting this Monday evening and which follows on from the previous cycles from Pilsen, Ostrava and České Budějovice, the criminal ghosts of the 90s of the last century emerge, old secrets, ancient grievances are revealed, and also – possibly fictional – a criminal hoax about 200 million crowns hidden somewhere, allegedly related to the so-called light fuel oil case.
But behind all this, one can sense a rather tiresome effort to once again exploit the “90s”, a time that evokes strong, albeit often conflicting, emotions in those who have witnessed it.Otherwise, Place of Crime Zlín is a rather sleepy crime story. It focuses on a different case in each episode and is especially unexciting in the opening episodes.
Before Ptáčník and his colleagues come to a direct confrontation with the past in the fourth episode, the series is permeated by a longing for the resolution of cases that might have had a certain small appeal on paper, but lack it on the screen. The pilot episode baráž deals with corruption, fake sponsors and match-fixing or betting in football. And in fact, she doesn’t even manage to play with the viewer that classic game of guessing the perpetrator, the murderer of a famous local football player, who also worked abroad, but didn’t exactly think the best of things with the Zlín club.
Trailer from the series Scene of crime zlín.
Video: Czech Television
Photo: Czech Television