I could write reams about this and still not do it justice. During the first 2 episodes, I thought "I'm not going to like this...", but I am now on episode 16 (still only half way), and the episodes are 90m long!
The cast is massive, nearly all of the characters suffer from some form of insanity, and most provide a great deal of background narrative, giving a sense of authenticity. There is some over-acting, but as you watch each episode, this seems to blend naturally, so that it just appears to be genuine aspects of the character being played. The key characters are excellently portrayed, I found myself empathising even with some of the most brutal ones.
I don't know if it is a true representation of Turkish culture, if so, it appears to be pretty violent, with verbal rebukes that would be appropriate in Western society being replaced with physical slaps. There is a lot of fairly graphic violence throughout the series, which adds to the excitement and fits in with the story-line.
The story-line (in the episodes that I have seen so far) fits several sub-plots together while still maintaining logical integrity and continuity. Puzzles are solved, sometimes in a single episode, but more often over several episodes.
The locations are impressive, featuring underground passages and homes, massive engineering structures, lots of derelict industrial scenes, as well as some luxury homes and buildings.
I could be critical on some technical points, there are a few instances when I thought "that would never happen", but if you ignore those and just go with the flow, it doesn't detract from the absorbing and exciting story.
