The excellence of Babylon Berlin and some concerns about the end of season 1 (no spoilers)

A few quibbles aside, the German miniseries Babylon Berlin is a powerful and provocative story throughout its 16 episodes, with many plot lines, betrayals, and reversals of fortune that keep you thinking and engaged throughout. The writing and acting are smart; the lead characters - Gereon Rath (Berlin homicide detective who finds himself investigating a plot against the state and a potential military coup) and Charlotte Ricker (a young woman in an impoverished and derelick Berlin family, working nights as a prostitute in a decadent nightclub frequented by vice-squad members among others and who aspires to become a police detective - are intelligent, complex, flawed, and appealing; and the whole company does a great job re-creating the louche atmosphere of Berlin in the 20s, complete with political instability, extremes of wealth and poverty, frenetic entertainment, cross-dressing and overt sexuality, hyperinflation, political battles, clashes between right- and left-wing forces. The season brings a few surprising twists (don't worry, no spoilers here) in the final episode and wraps successfully - while still managing to look forward to an anticipated season 2. That said, the final episode, while dramatic and exciting, seemed, unlike the preceding 15, more 007ish, with a shootout on a moving train, a dramatic underwater rescue, and other theatrics involving near superhuman skills and effort. Similarly - and I wonder if here it went off script from the source novel? - the final episode introduced some startling though hardly credible final plot twists and revelations that seem out of place in this series but admittedly leave the door open for further development and complications in future episodes.