And if you tune in to enjoy hunky firefighters flexing their buttocks in gratuitous communal shower scenes before heading home for hot sex with their ladyfolk … well, you won’t be left completely hanging, but neither will you be brought above a mild simmer. Nor does High Heat fully embrace the camp of soap by unloading one outrageous twist after another with a fierce, straight face – the revelations are implausibly convenient, for sure, but never delightfully, screamingly ridiculous. Its tone is close to comedic but it refuses to lean into that by giving anyone a regular stock of funny lines, despite having a prime candidate in the eccentric boarding-house proprietress whose accommodation is across the street from the station, and whose daughters are all dating or perving over the firefighters. Sadly, these are rare flashes of the knowing chaos High Heat could have unleashed.

“It has all the ingredients: psychopathy, sexual drives, police corruption, border issues. Very occasionally, High Heat goes fully meta: “It’s a thrilling story,” says an investigative journalist, asked about her obsession with the same mystery we are following. “There are no coincidences,” he is told soon after, by a supporting character who has met him thanks to what appears to be a colossal coincidence.

“What am I doing here?” says Poncho at the end of a scene where he inexplicably wanders away from brightly lit safety and on to a spookily deserted hotel roof. There are hints that writer/creator José Ignacio Valenzuela is not taking events quite as seriously as his characters. Here and there, High Heat is happy to use the reverbed-flashback trick to convey information that we haven’t previously been privy to.Įsmeralda Pimentel as Olivia in High Heat. There is solo staring, on a sofa or in a car, often accompanied by echoey repeats of dialogue from important previous scenes to remind us who this person is and what’s troubling them. There is secret, one-way staring, where a character’s rival eavesdrops unseen in the background, staring at them from behind. Characters eyeball each other for several seconds at the conclusion of a scene, after a dark secret or ruthless betrayal has been unearthed. One of the telenovela’s most familiar acting tropes is heavily in evidence, namely the grumpy, smouldering stare. Underneath the main storyline are subplots featuring alcoholism, self-harm, cancer and a supposedly straight man hiding his real sexuality – which, ludicrously, manifests via a covert interest in knitting. High Heat is somewhere between a regular miniseries and a soapy, endlessly regenerating telenovela, since it doesn’t go on for ever but, at 39 half-hour episodes, is not far off. When the station chief is killed by a car bomb and replaced by a mystery man from out of town, how long will it take Poncho to figure out that the new boss (Eduardo Capetillo) is, in fact, his father? Could the killing be related to their shared past, growing up as orphans in foster care? What’s the connection to a famous serial-killer case? His brother was investigating a particular fire station in the capital before he died, so Poncho swaps one impressive hose for another – giving up erotic dancing and training as a firefighter, the better to continue the hunt for clues. Poncho (Iván Amozurrutia) is minding his own business, thrilling female punters by performing on stage in a Mexico City strip club, when his more serious-minded journalist brother is murdered. Sprawling firefighter drama Donde Hubo Fuego – billed in the UK as High Heat – tries hard to change that, and fails. It has given the world shows made in France, Germany, South Korea and even Canada, but its roster of Central and South American dramas remains low on must-sees. Latin America still feels like an untapped resource for Netflix, at least in terms of global crossover hits.

New york undercover on netflix