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I’ve begun to check back frequently on that newly-discovered feature on Amazon Prime where they offer up what shows are going to be leaving at the end of a current month. One that caught my eye is the show Wilder, available for free on streaming but not for very much longer.

Wilder is a Swiss TV detective series with the title being the surname of the main character, Rosa Wilder. The Swiss origin was part of what drew me in. I’ve had uniformly positive experiences watching detective shows from across Europe. I’ve never seen a Swiss series before but a fella has to take some risks in life.

When I got around to looking up some additional info on the TV series, I realized one big reason why I’ve never watched a Swiss production before. Apparently, there just aren’t that many. Wikipedia has no entries for either the series (4 seasons, so far) or the lead actress (Sarah Spale). What Wikipedia does have is a page, “List of Swiss Films.” It shows, one assumes, all of them – from a 1922 animation through to a new production that won’t see release until this upcoming March. (Almost) all on one page!

It is a substantial page – a quick count gets me to 172 titles. It is just that this is a small number for a category of “all films.” Notably, there are many years in there with no released films at all including as recently as 2003. The year 2014 also gets its own page (and adds 13 more to the grand total), it being the most prolific movie year in Swiss history. For all the Swiss excel at as a nation, making movies apparently isn’t one of those things.

I’ve not run across a similar summary for Swiss TV. I imagine it is not quite as sparse as films but no doubt shorter than, say, England, France, and Denmark.

The next thing that sucked me in was the IMDb rating. The Amazon screen displays it and it is a very respectable 7.4. I’ve told you that I don’t quite trust IMDb as much as I do the Netflix DVD ratings but Wilder isn’t available on Netflix DVD, making this the best I can do. Still, 7.4 is high enough that it almost certainly signifies a show worth watching.

I’ve also told you that what I don’t trust at all is Amazon’s five-star ratings. What I’ve found, through experience with both streaming and basic product purchases, is that anything less than 4 1/2 stars probably means there is a serious problem somewhere. Since I don’t really believe that most purchasers rate everything they buy with five stars, there is probably some systematic manipulation of the ratings involved. Indeed, even some 4.8-starred shows (and consumer goods, for that matter) turn out to be junk.

Thus, as I was about to hit play, I happened to glace at the Amazon rating and came this close to giving up on Wilder altogether. You see, the Amazon rating was* just barely above 3 on my TV screen. Three and something stars is, honestly, an indication of “stay far far away” territory. Baffled, I decided I’d already settled in with a late-night snack so I might as well follow through. Worst case, I would just give up after the first episode. Or maybe even the first fifteen minutes.

Amazon has only 27* ratings total and a third of them are “1 star.” One telling review bomb explains how the reviewer lasted “only 15 minutes” based upon the “most improbable starting sequence I’ve ever seen.” That seems a little bit hyperbolic but, I’ll also admit, I wasn’t entirely impressed at the opening.

Wilder does start out slow and with little in the way of indicated direction. We encounter this woman we don’t know in a place we don’t know, there for reasons that aren’t explained. It’s just a confusing if captivating series of shots of alpine winter scenery. As the plot develops, it also seems to draw from other, similar murder-mystery work making me wonder whether I wasn’t watching a remake of something** I’d seen. I caught what I thought was some stilted acting (harder to pin down on a subtitled show) and a few digital glitches in the film. After that first fifteen minutes, though, I decided none of that defined the show. It is a well-done take on, yes, a popular TV series theme, but set in a uniquely beautiful location (brought to life with impressive cinematography) with plenty of the flavor that this might entail.

After finishing the first episode I read some of the Amazon’s reviews and tried to figure why it averaged so low. I immediately picked out that the second season is ranked five stars (albeit based on only two ratings). Clearly the rankings are driven by a) a dearth of reviewers and b) the fact that many immediately tuned out and then registered their displeasure against the whole series. To be honest, in America, foreign language works are not that popular and we also expect faster-pace action featuring prettier*** actors than what comes, often, out of Europe. For what it’s worth, IMDb reviewers seemed to prefer Season 1 to Season 2, although the ratings are not really that far apart.

As an aside, I’ll say that the show feels less “foreign” than those from my recent foray into other European productions. When watching police dramas from England or France, I am sometimes aghast as the lack of respect for civil rights (e.g. the absence of America’s warrants and Miranda warnings or the ubiquity of “Big Brother” surveillance cameras). Rural Switzerland almost seems more similar to rural American than I would have expected. The biggest disconnect came from a scene where the main character finds herself in this small, remote town without a car. So she just goes out and waits for the bus! You don’t do that around here.

One giveaway that this was “European,” though, is the on-screen depiction of sexuality. This show does cross some lines (e.g. nipples) that wouldn’t, couldn’t be shown on broadcast or basic cable in the U.S. I don’t have all the details, but my impression was that this show was originally aired as such in Switzerland and in Germany. It also is rather blithe with its portrayal of underage sex and statutory rape (not shown, if that needs clarifying). I would not expect to find this casual tone here in North America but morality is changing so fast these days that I probably shouldn’t assume.

Wilder currently has three of its seasons on Amazon with the fourth, maybe-not-yet-done with its first-run in Switzerland. Two of those seasons are available to watch for free on Prime and the third requires an $8/month subscription to a previously-unheard-of (to me) service called “MHz Choice.” Implied is that all three seasons will end up exclusively assigned to that particular paid option at the end of the month.

In fact, reading between the lines, this might be one of Amazon’s business models that I’ve been puzzling over. Amazon sometimes offers a season, or even just an episode, for free for about a month – a portion of a series otherwise from the company’s premium (partner) paid content. Doing so gives a Prime subscriber a chance to sample and maybe (or not) get hooked enough to buy the upgrade package. It explains why these shows suddenly appear and then disappear. It also explains why Amazon has added the feature to emphasize what they are doing.

The seasons – released in batches of six episodes total – are shorter than I had expected. That means that, at this point, I can finish the free content if I apply myself properly. Given the pricing model, though, no matter how much I like it, I don’t expect to get to Season 3 and beyond any time soon.

*I am pretty sure that it had only 21 ratings, totally lower than its current score, the night I watched the first episode. It would make sense that, since Amazon is pushing this about-to-expire show, there are – as I type – people watching and then countering the abysmal reviews which jar with their own experience.

**I saw similarities to Wind River and to Forbrydelsen/The Killing in both that opening sequence as well as the city-detective-returning-to-her-home-town motif. In the end, Wilder may have borrowed but I don’t believe it stole.

***Another amusing user review states simply, “Sorry to say it but every character looks like they need a wash.”