For Life (Livstid) is a totally fresh take on the crime procedural, both entertaining and ‘happy’, co-created by the international Emmy-award winner writer Gjermund S. Eriksen (Mammon) with Helena Nielsen (Lilyhammer, Aber Bergen). Co-writers are Anne Elvedal (Twin, Hotel Cæsar), Hege Ulstein (Aber Bergen), Ingar Johnsrud, Anders Borgesen and Anders Løvlie.

The 8-part series follows Victoria Woll, a sharp crime investigator, with a deep sense of justice, across two different timelines: in the present, where she solves cases and puts criminals behind bars, and in the future, where she is locked up in prison.

Each stand-alone episode has highly topical issues and diverse crimes.

We get to know the complex Victoria, through her work, with her police squad, at home with her son and her love interest.

In the title roles are Tone Mostraum (Eyewitness), Iselin Shumba (ZombieLars), Ingar Helge Gimle (Norsemen), Judy Karanja (Valkyrien), Hallvard Holmen (Magnus), Vidar Sandem (Mammon) and Mattis Herman Nyquist (Nobel).

Concept director Pål Jackman (State of Happiness) has worked with episodic directors Bård Breien (Next Summer), Camilla Strøm-Henriksen (Phoenix) and Pia Lykke.

The series was produced by Catherine Klem of Monster for NRK, with co-financing from SVT, DR, Yle and RÚV, with support from the Norwegian Film Institute and Nordisk Film & TV Fond.

NENT Studios UK which handles sales, has secured initial deals with SBS in Australia, Pro Plus in Slovenia, and Canal Plus in France.

Firstly do you work as a freelance writer or are you in-house writer at Monster?
Gjermund S. Eriksen: I’m a freelance showrunner/writer. But I do have two series with Monster: one 'Happy Noir' [For Life], and one ‘Noir Noir’ - Furia, currently filming.

I've heard that it was NRK who approached you with the wish to have a procedural. Could you confirm?
GSE: Yes that’s correct. NRK wanted a procedural as they could see a change in TV viewing. Personally, I’m more interested in modern crime serialised drama. I wasn’t so keen on the idea. But then at home, my son is always watching different comedy shows, like Family Guy, where each episode has a universe of its own. I also watched How I Met your Mother with him. It’s so innovative and there are so many unique episodic stories. I thought…I’m gonna do ‘How I met your Murderer!’ We will do a crime show equivalent to How I Met Your Mother, with a device in the future, and tell each episode in the present time, in the order that we like, dramatised within different crime stories.

I pitched the idea to NRK and got the OK. I started working with Helena Nielsen who had the idea for Victoria- the crime investigator, sitting in a jail in the future, convicted for life, who then needs to get out. That gave us the perfect engine.

We felt our new take on a procedural was a perfect fit for today’s family viewing, where you can binge but also ‘snack’ each episode.

How did you actually build the non-linear storyline?
GSE: I’ve always been fascinated by flash-forward techniques since Damages. They did a whole show where the flash-forward builds the characters and drives the story at the same time. It always makes the story and characters go deeper in some sense and you can tweak and play with the audience.

I also think that the way True Detective handled flashbacks is a masterpiece. They are using time to get more fascination for the characters and the story. We studied various shows which did this well and those which didn’t. We created some dogmas for the time jumps, so that a wide audience could come along.

What dogmas did you create?
GSE: For instance every episode should have a crime story of its own; every episode should have a piece of the puzzle that tells you what is going on in all other episodes, how it relates to the big picture; every episode should have one clue from Victoria in the future and one clue about her in the present time; each episode focuses a bit more on one character, making them more complex, not to repeat ourselves.

The repetitive nature of the characters and story is one typical aspect of procedurals that we wanted to avoid. Here, we have eight episodes where we play with sub-genres, so that you feel you never really watch the same crime story.

Then for each episode, we wanted Victoria to evolve. We said we need to learn something about her in the future, that is inspired by the present.

How did you work in the writers’ room?
GSE: I tried to learn from US showrunners that I interviewed and attended a Media Exchange showrunners’ course to understand how they work with procedurals. We applied their models, in building the outline of an episode over 14 days, getting it approved in a week, then getting the episodic writer to adjust, and adjust, until we were satisfied. This is a classic American approach. They’ve done it for 40 years, so why try to reinvent things that work.

I personally really enjoyed the writers’ room experience. I was used to writing alone in my office for years. I believe the collaborative thinking makes things better. Different writers have different areas of expertise and we all complement each other. Here, each writer worked with a different episode and this is mirrored in the unique feel and tone of each episode. There is consistency in the characters, but the story should feel alive and reinvented every time.

Can you describe the main characters in a few words?  
GSE: With Victoria, I didn’t want to create a super woman, without flaws. She is extremely good at understanding humanity, good as a crime investigator but she isn’t very good at communicating and making people understand what she does and why. Her teenage son is a good kid, and her colleagues in the police squad are quite atypical, perfect misfits in a way.

Who decided on the casting?
GSE: The writers and producers did the central casting before the directors came on board. They came up with suggestions for the minor roles. Tone Beate Mostraum who plays Victoria has been in different series and is a great stage actor as well. She has a look and tone that hasn’t been used in other Nordic crime shows. She felt original.

The show is tagged as a ‘Happy Noir’. Can you explain the term for us?
GSE: From the outset, NRK’s executive producer Marianne Furevold-Boland said she wanted to have a ‘Nordic noir with a smile’. Not a blue-sky crime that would have been too sugary. We simply wanted the series to be entertaining for a wide number of people, including members of a family.
I used as inspiration the colour grade of emotions of the Disney animated film Inside Out. Nordic noir has four emotions, anger, fear, sorrow and disgust, as it has to do with the sense of justice. With those four emotions, you can create The Killing, Mammon, The Bridge etc. If you add joy, you have a richer way of speaking about humanity. It doesn’t mean the show is a comedy, but there are fun moments, even in sad circumstances. This is a richer emotional way of doing a procedural.

The snappy dialogue, very fast pace makes it also very entertaining…
GSE: Tone is always hard. But once you get a consistency in tone, you can play around and do whatever. Tone is the first string. If that goes away, you lose the audience.

In what way is it a true NRK show?
GSE: I’m a huge fan of public broadcasting and I can easily brag about NRK. They dare to use new talents, new faces, new genres. Here again, they are bold and brave. No one can say they have seen a show like For Life before.

Your next big show is Furia, currently filming. Can you say a few words about the storyline? I read you were inspired by Homeland…
GSE: It starts out as a regular crime show and it turns out as something deeper and very unique. Homeland was extremely good at making a thriller story deepen your understanding of an important question: what triggers Islamic terror. We will hopefully engage the world in a different kind of conversation about how right-wing extremism works.

What are your views on the ever-increasing competition for top quality drama in an expanding market, and the place of Nordic content?
GSE: I feel Nordic drama is one of the leading hubs for pushing what broad storytelling can be. We should never stop learning, including from other countries. Look at Israel, Belgium, Italy, Spain - they do brilliant shows. I also feel that we should not discredit the Nordic noir. We’ve been doing crime stories for 2,000 years and it’s going to continue. There are many ways to be creative within crime.

What are you watching these days?
GSE: Very little because when I make a show I try not to watch something, so that I won’t accidentally steal. I think Yellowstone is a very cool show, then one of the best shows I’ve seen this year is Watchmen - with a true inventive use of time, and an important topic about racism in the US. Among Norwegian shows, I liked Witch Hunt, Exit, 22 July.