The answer, with a few noticeable cracks, is yes.

Where Berlin stumbles is in its pacing. The middle episodes sag under the weight of romantic subplots that, while intended to mirror Berlin’s own obsessive view of love as a “catastrophe,” sometimes feel like filler. And for all of Alonso’s charisma, the show can’t fully replace the high-stakes cat-and-mouse game with the police that made Money Heist so addictive. Here, the authorities are competent but bland.

Here’s a short critical piece on Berlin (Season 1), the Money Heist spin-off: