FBI: International - Season 1
The American FBI comes to Europe to help the local police. Fortunately, the FBI knows how to do it much better than the poor European police.FBI: International is a CBS crime series in which American FBI agents travel around Europe to protect Americans there. It is a spin-off of another successful CBS series (FBI). All this together means that I do get serious flashbacks to Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders, an extremely disappointing series in terms of quality. But fortunately, FBI: International is not that bad. However, it is certainly not good.
FBI: International, as the name suggests, is a spin-off of FBI. In this series, the FBI team has their office in Hungary and from there they fly to different European countries depending on where they are needed. In this context, 'necessary' should be taken somewhat loosely; it is mainly about 'necessary' from an American perspective. I suspect that at least half of these cases would not normally involve an FBI agent.
This team is led by Scott Forrester (Luke Kleintank, Bones), an impatient man who tends to get out of control and is a bit sexist in my opinion. That sexism is especially nice when he starts a relationship with his colleague Jamie Kellett (Heida Reed, Stella Blómkvist) at the beginning of the season. She is also a nicer character but makes dubious choices. As a cop, she seems a bit more capable. In addition, the team also includes two junior agents: Cameron Vo (Vinessa Vidotto, Lucifer) and Andre Raines (Carter Redwood, 5th Ward). They are clearly a bit younger and less experienced but somehow manage both their personal and professional lives a lot better than Forrester and Kellett. Finally, there is Katrin Jaeger (Christine Paul, Counterpart). She is the liaison between the FBI and the European Interpol. For me the nicest character in the series; is capable and she's not constantly sabotaging both herself and the case of the week.
So this team flies through Europe every week. They mainly come there to tell the local police that they are doing it wrong (if things are going well) or that they are corrupt (if things are not good). The series is full of all kinds of stereotypes about all kinds of European countries: drinking vodka in the middle of the day (Russians), prisons where you get beaten up (Spain), and the porn capital of the world (Prague); the series knows how to put the visited places in the best possible light. One bright spot: the Netherlands will be spared this season! It remains to be seen if that will change next season, but if it does I will bet on a story about drugs or about the red light district; does anyone dare to place a bet with me?
What else is there to say? The acting is mediocre; not super bad, but there are also better series to be found. The storylines vary enormously in quality. And that is if we ignore the stereotypes of Europeans for a moment. Sometimes things just aren't that good, some questions aren't answered, and sometimes things are acted out inexplicably. To end on a positive note, everything looks nice. That again. It also looks nice (except for the moments when I want to throw my laptop out the window because something ridiculous is happening again).
All in all, this is not such a good series. Somehow it got a second season. This reminded me a lot of Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders. That was also canceled after two seasons, so let's see if this manages to kick on or dies there too. Fair is fair, this series scores a little higher. If only because the storylines are just a little better and the stereotypes are a little less bad. But yeah, it's not really a good series either.
FBI: International, as the name suggests, is a spin-off of FBI. In this series, the FBI team has their office in Hungary and from there they fly to different European countries depending on where they are needed. In this context, 'necessary' should be taken somewhat loosely; it is mainly about 'necessary' from an American perspective. I suspect that at least half of these cases would not normally involve an FBI agent.
© CBS
This team is led by Scott Forrester (Luke Kleintank, Bones), an impatient man who tends to get out of control and is a bit sexist in my opinion. That sexism is especially nice when he starts a relationship with his colleague Jamie Kellett (Heida Reed, Stella Blómkvist) at the beginning of the season. She is also a nicer character but makes dubious choices. As a cop, she seems a bit more capable. In addition, the team also includes two junior agents: Cameron Vo (Vinessa Vidotto, Lucifer) and Andre Raines (Carter Redwood, 5th Ward). They are clearly a bit younger and less experienced but somehow manage both their personal and professional lives a lot better than Forrester and Kellett. Finally, there is Katrin Jaeger (Christine Paul, Counterpart). She is the liaison between the FBI and the European Interpol. For me the nicest character in the series; is capable and she's not constantly sabotaging both herself and the case of the week.
So this team flies through Europe every week. They mainly come there to tell the local police that they are doing it wrong (if things are going well) or that they are corrupt (if things are not good). The series is full of all kinds of stereotypes about all kinds of European countries: drinking vodka in the middle of the day (Russians), prisons where you get beaten up (Spain), and the porn capital of the world (Prague); the series knows how to put the visited places in the best possible light. One bright spot: the Netherlands will be spared this season! It remains to be seen if that will change next season, but if it does I will bet on a story about drugs or about the red light district; does anyone dare to place a bet with me?
What else is there to say? The acting is mediocre; not super bad, but there are also better series to be found. The storylines vary enormously in quality. And that is if we ignore the stereotypes of Europeans for a moment. Sometimes things just aren't that good, some questions aren't answered, and sometimes things are acted out inexplicably. To end on a positive note, everything looks nice. That again. It also looks nice (except for the moments when I want to throw my laptop out the window because something ridiculous is happening again).
All in all, this is not such a good series. Somehow it got a second season. This reminded me a lot of Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders. That was also canceled after two seasons, so let's see if this manages to kick on or dies there too. Fair is fair, this series scores a little higher. If only because the storylines are just a little better and the stereotypes are a little less bad. But yeah, it's not really a good series either.
About the writer, Karzal
Mike (1995) has been a member of MySeries since 2016 and is mainly active on the English version of the site. Since 2018, he has been actively translating news articles, columns, reviews and basically everything that ends up on the Dutch site. The original articles, columns and reviews were actually written by others. During the week Mike can be found at IKEA, where he is a national systems specialist and occasionally also in the classroom to teach an English lesson. In addition, Mike logically enjoys watching series and has actually been spoon-fed this from an early age. The genre doesn't matter, there is a place for everything in the otherwise busy life.
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