Kätevä emäntä

Kätevä emäntä was the longest running and most popular of the slew of female-fronted sketch shows that populated the Finnish screens in the early 2000s. Not as raunchy as Ranuan kummit nor as bland as Epilaattori, it simply presented a good set of running sketches, like women acting out rock macho clichés, female rally drivers getting distracted by things like mail order catalogues or three tired housewives nonchalantly trying to outdo each other in who goes to most absurd lengths for her family. PMS, ridiculous makeover shows, trendy bimbos and doomed marriage guidance counseling were other familiar themes handled quite deliciously.

The show's best invention was to update national folklore to modern usage. Hence Kalevala-metre spells could be used to clean dirty dishes, unscramble a computer operating system or resuscitate the family mutt that you had accidentally run over. Similarly, a chorus line of modern-day wailing women, cheeks streaked with running mascara, slow-marched through the rain (in disposable rain coats, of course), lamenting their failures to become supermodels or to secure that Gucci handbag from the department store sale. The show was never too out there or risky, but usually appealing and sometimes poignant.

A show like this lives or dies with its actors. Kätevä emäntä had great performances from all involved. The most memorable of the brood were provided by Valonen as a creaky-voiced "come on" fusspot forever trying to balance the scales in her relationship and Kivelä (one of the best Finnish comedians of her generation) as an irresistibly chirpy but irrepressibly fair-minded shop clerk Seija who played the everyday moral conscience to the sulky Finnish shoppers.

The fourth season replaced the familiar title sequence with a parody of the classic Finnish rock band Hurriganes, ditched most of the earlier routines and assumed a darker tone. Themes such as the breakdown of communication between mother and daughter, politicians passing the buck or the insanity of the be-positive-or-perish corporate culture had already been explored, but now they were presented as pitch-black comedy. Laughter did not come as easy as before, but then perhaps the show was better attuned to the times, and reality's absurd humour is always the hardest kind to take.

No surprise then that the fifth season backed up a bit and reintroduced a few more lighter elements back into the mix. Each of its episodes centred on some festival (Christmas, New Year, Midsummer) or celebration (wedding, graduation). Some worked better than others, some would have benefited from having leeway to cast a wider net for their material. Unsurprisingly for a Finnish series, it was the funeral episode, with ideas like people snapping graveside "deadlies" for social media, that had the highest hit ratio. As good as this season was, the second season remains the show's peak.