I think it's a good series and watched it in one go. Some castings have really turned out very well and that is an achievement since the pool of Dutch acting talent is not inexhaustible. Ramsey Nasr is awesome. The most believable character on the show. Of course also props for Jeroen Spitzenberger and as always for Frank Lammers. I find the casting of Thijs Römer inappropriate, because at the time he wondered on Twitter 'Where Volkert is when you need him' after Geert Wilders' statement 'Do you want more or less Moroccans'.
Well, back to the show.
The way certain moments have been recreated is very good. The photo moment of Melkert with his dead beer, for example. The way in which Mat Herben tells part of the story is also very original.
But...some iconic moments are completely wrong and that bothers me. The speech in the apartment about the 5th column is an example of this, but there are more moments that we all know, but which do not come out very well.
The attack on Fortuyn by Volkert is the pinnacle here. Really nothing of what actually happened is right, but also in the run-up to that everything goes wrong. Needlessly wrong.
For example, Volkert van der Graaf buys his weapon in a parking garage from some junkie. It is not a problem that the type of weapon does not match, but Volkert had owned that weapon for much longer. It was in the attic in a locked suitcase that he kept hidden from Petra (his girlfriend) all this time. He bought the weapon in a Turkish cafe where he ended up through one of his acquaintances from Wageningen.
Van der Graaf's 31-page statement describes exactly how he handled it. He was behind Fortuyn when he fired the first two bullets (into his back). In his own words because he then knew for sure that he could immediately fatally injure Fortuyn because he did not want him to suffer unnecessarily. In the series we see something completely different. Fortuyn, face to face with Volkert and the first shot that grazed his ear followed by a kind of execution where Fortuyn is kneeling in front of Volkert. It's nowhere near what actually happened on May 6, 2002.
What happened on May 06, 2002?
Volkert had first hidden in the bushes. When Smolders came out and got into Fortuyn's car, Volkert lay down between the cars from where he could see under the cars that a number of people, including Fortuyn, were arriving. He got up and walked towards Fortuyn. He walked around him and before Fortuyn could turn around he fired the first shot. The recoil of the weapon was great, it is said (despite being a light caliber), so he had to re-aim. The second shot was fired. Fortuyn collapsed. Volkert walked around him and shot his head and twice more in the neck. The sixth bullet was fired accidentally. Volkert ran away. Smolders gave chase. Volkert was arrested at the gas station.
This had been an excellent opportunity to get into Volkert's sick head. How did he come up with the idea? How did he prepare it?
In short: a good show, but the blow to the fire level was missing.