"they run like animals from the sauna to the sea": ROBA is the hit finnish police procedural

Wow, I had no idea that this is on Netflix! I don't watch non-internet television, and I'm not particularly interested in cop shows, so I've never watched Roba... Maybe I should try it.

is this really an MTV finland production

In here we have television company called MTV that's way older than Music Television (it was founded in 1957). It's short for "Mainostelevisio", which literally means "commercial television", as opposed to YLE, our own BBC, which doesn't have commercials.

something like hill street makes sense, it's very much abt the feel of a specific city quarter

I haven't watched the series so I don't know how they portray it, but Roba (the street and the police station named after it) are in southernmost Helsinki, which is a very posh and affluent area. If they'd wanted to do a gritty, Hill Street Blues style series, they should've set it at (for example) the police station in Malmi, in northern Helsinki, which is where I grew up. That's a way poorer area with different kind of crime than Punavuori, where Roba is.

one of the many things i like about it is that the crims -- even the murderous ones -- are almost all total idiots

This is actually quite true with criminals in here. The stereotypical Finnish murder involves some boozing buddies getting really drunk, having an argument, and one of them killing another in a drunken haze. There is some local organised crime but not much, and it mostly works in drug smuggling and sales. Almost all the well-organised robberies (like bank and jewelry store jobs where thy got away with substantial loot) in recent years have turned out to be done by criminals from other EU countries or Russia. Most of the local ones simply aren't smart and organised enough to do anything like that.

Oh yeah, and there haven't really been that many successful police procedurals in the local television here. Most of the truly popula cop series have been comedies, I think Roba is only the first or second police drama to have made it past two seasons. Though it's worth mentioning that pretty much all the main actors in it are better known as comedians.

Lol, looks like the isn't available on our Netflix, probably because MTV wants to keep the local distribution rights to itself. I guess I won't watch it then.

That scene where the crim's asking spiky hair about ketchup and mayonnaise really stayed with me. Really really creepy

the new hit finnish procedural i am watching is called BORDERTOWN in English (or SORJONEN in Finnish), set in Lappeenranta, on the Finno-Russian border.

Sorjonen is the central character, an investigator perhaps intended to be considered somewhat aspergers -- certainly his co-cops think him weird and irritating. There is also a Russian FSB agent called Lena, who helps him unoffiically (mainly by shooting people).

first three-parter wz abt the underage sex trade, second is abt drugs

and it's more like the bridge than the bill