Babylon Berlin

The as-yet-uninitiated should watch them, joyously. There aren't many "events" on television; this is one.

Not subtle. But Babylon Berlin is an amazing show, and it’s an amazing show for right now: politically resonant but historically removed, stylistic and melodramatic, endearing, bracing, and completely absorbing.

“BB” fans will not be disappointed. .... If you’re not a fan, though, what you can’t appreciate is how Volker Bruch, as a police inspector Gereon Rath, and Liv Lisa Fries, as police clerk Charlotte Ritter (yes, Gereon and Charlotte are sweet on each other), elevate the proceedings and hold them together.

“Babylon Berlin” cruises along like a particularly eventful amusement park ride — Weimar Fever Dream — that practically negates the concept of suspension of disbelief. .... Clips from the film-within-a-film, with its references to Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis,” are an amusing, and sometimes surprisingly moving, bonus in the later episodes. Also keep your eyes out for a pointed homage to “The Third Man.”

There is even more going on than in previous seasons (the first two were eight episodes each), and while the show is as watchable as ever, the action does not stay as sharply in focus as before — the strands still weave together in credible and entertaining fashion, but the individual story lines do not carry the same dramatic and emotional weight. They do not demand your attention quite as insistently.