A renovation in a quiet Frederiksberg apartment exposes a secret embalmed in dust and silence, the mummified remains of an infant, hidden within a wall. When 87-year-old Martha (Ulla Henningsen) unexpectedly confesses to the crime, her admission becomes the key to a buried lineage of guilt, silence, and unacknowledged inheritance. Generations, created by Anna Emma Haudal and scriptwriter Rune Schjøtt-Wieth (The Rain, Dark Horse) for DR Drama, begins as a mystery but quickly evolves into denser family drama and a psychological excavation of family memory and its genetic residue.
Haudal, who emerged with Doggystyle (2018–2020), has been preoccupied with the discrepancy between private and performed identities. That series, a sharply observed character study of a young woman reconstructing her life after returning home, framed authenticity as both a burden and a currency. Generations is a more mature venture extending across one female lineage in a tightly constructed genre fusion.
The series opens with a variation on the familiar “dead girl” trope: a mummified newborn is discovered in Martha’s attic, to her mild but not total surprise. This revelation frames the narrative, which unfolds through both crime investigation and courtroom drama, yet ultimately serves as a gateway into Martha’s family history, spanning three generations and reaching further back.
Her granddaughter Rikke (Rikke Eberhardt Isen) takes on the case as Martha’s defense attorney while juggling her own domestic challenges. She is raising two sons and navigating an open marriage with her husband Martin (Simon Sears), whose patience is wearing thin amid growing emotional distance.
Meanwhile, Martha’s daughter and Rikke’s mother, Tina (Anette Støvelbæk), works in Jutland, where unusual natural phenomena begin to appear in the fields and along the coast at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. As Martha’s secret and the ensuing criminal case come to light, long-buried tensions between mother and daughter resurface, exposing the emotional fractures that have shaped the family for decades.
Amid the wider family turmoil is Anne-Sofie (Alice Bier Zanden), Rikke’s sister, who has been struggling to conceive. When her wish is finally granted, it brings with it a series of difficult choices for her and her partner Isac (Albert Arthur Amiryan). Still within the family orbit is Jesper (Jan Linnebjerg), Tina’s ex-husband, who tries to maintain a steady presence for their two children: a young son and daughter Lea (Olga Schultz). Lea faces her own crisis involving a case of revenge porn, adding yet another layer of conflict to the family’s already tangled web of secrets and strained relationships.
Haudal introduces a broad ensemble of characters over the course of the six-episode first season but maintains narrative clarity and restraint. The character arcs remain coherent and emotionally grounded, avoiding melodrama. Each figure, while connected to the central thread of Martha’s story, faces personal dilemmas that give Generations the texture of a contemporary family drama.
Set against the backdrop of the pandemic, which may evoke uneasy memories, the series weaves in themes of open marriage, infertility, revenge porn, and the often-overlooked dynamics between aging mothers and their adult daughters. Viewed largely through a female perspective, Generations situates these experiences within a modern social context.
The series is shot by cinematographer Valdemar Winge Leisner (Doggystyle, Kaos), whose visual approach anchors the narrative in confined, domestic settings, dimly lit apartments, narrow hallways, and kitchens, where most of the character development takes place. These intimate spaces contrast with the institutional environments that frame the investigation surrounding the mummified infant.
Tina’s storyline unfolds largely outdoors, in Jutland’s rural landscapes, where unsettling natural phenomena begin to occur. In one striking instance, eggs from a nearby farm disappear, only to reappear arranged in spiral patterns across the fields. While Haudal efficiently merges two of television’s most familiar genres, crime and family dramam she also pushes the narrative into more ambiguous terrain. Subtle elements of mystery, and in Rikke’s case even the supernatural, expand the series’ tonal range, recalling the eerie atmosphere of Lars von Trier’s The Kingdom.
While much of Generations unfolds in a realist mode, Haudal employs elements of mystery and the supernatural as a subtle narrative device to diverge from conventional television patterns. These genre motifs function less as departures into fantasy than as figurative expressions of how the past collides with the present and how its unresolved traces haunt the younger generation. In Rikke’s case, this takes on an almost imperceptible J-horror quality, where the “ghosts” of family history manifest psychologically rather than literally.
This formal approach allows the story to shift fluidly between temporal layers without relying on traditional flashbacks. Instead, fragments of home video, archival material, and fleeting memories interrupt the linear narrative, creating a mosaic of partial and unreliable recollections. By doing so, Haudal resists the explanatory tendencies of standard crime procedurals and situates Generations within a broader social framework.
Shame, particularly female shame, serves as the series’ central connective thread. It operates as a recurring motif that binds the family across generations, taking on a distinct form for each character. Whether rooted in gender expectations, social conventions, or familial obligations, shame becomes the silent force shaping their choices, relationships, and sense of identity.
While drawing on elements of Scandi Noir, Generations takes a different course, embracing a carefully composed blend of genres within a tightly structured narrative. It interweaves the lives of several generations of one family, tracing how the past continues to shape their present realities and emotional burdens. As a refined example of elevated genre storytelling, Generations remains accessible while maintaining formal precision. Haudal concludes Martha’s central arc with a sense of closure yet leaves parts of the family history deliberately sealed, suggesting space for further exploration.