ZAPPING: Flesh and Bone Policemen

The new season of Tras la huella (to which we will dedicate a more extensive comment later) has been attending some demands of viewers and critics.

In these premiere episodes, which Cubavisión broadcasts on Sundays after the News Reel, with the protagonists what was already expected in previous seasons has been consolidated: in the plots their stories and even their most personal conflicts are more evident.

Far away are those immaculate and infallible officers of the first seasons, who were unable, even, of joking among themselves.

Flesh and blood policemen, that has always been asked of this national police officer. And although the very logic of the series does not encourage exhaustive monitoring of the private lives of officers, to some extent their more or less intimate trajectories affect the plot lines.

And that calling to qualify characters also often reaches criminals, who shake off some commonplaces that at times become vices.

There’s also a discreet jump in quality in the screens, more notable in some miniseries. Better final product, more integration of all sections, some claim to go beyond mere functionality.

But we still can’t talk of established standards. Some chapters set the bar high, and it cannot always be reached in successive chapters.

Something has been earned in the management of suspense, although the very structure of the series usually makes the nature of criminal actions explicit since the beginning... but the investigative processes are narrated with less didacticism.

Following the evidence has had to face some of the dangers of long-winded series, which are based on the succession of independent and almost always unconnected stories. We will dedicate another comment to this circumstance.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff