I just wanted to say that Hinterland is the best cop drama I've seen on UK television in a long time. I very nearly didn't watch it at the start because the BBC announcer gave the impression it was in Welsh with English subtitles. However, because I am a BBC4 veteran of The Bridge, Borgen...I was not put off and was surprised to find the main spoken language was actually English.
First I have to say how intriguing it is to live in a truly bi-lingual country. We in England will have to wait a while yet before we find out, especially as we can have little idea of which of the many languages now competing in England will come to replace English within the next century.
I have visited mid-Wales, and am familiar with the sites where the series was filmed. It affects you from the start. You realise you are in a part of the planet that has been long abused and exploited by the Romans and then their neighbours to the East. Still they cling on to their culture and their language even now, and what is not deserving of respect for that.
I feel, by keeping the dialogue often to a minimum, the locations they are filmed in become central to the plot. It's risky but for me it works.
As for Mathias, we can see he has troubles but they are not, so far in this series, explored because we, by now, should be feeling he has arrived in a place where his troubles are as nothing to those of the people he is charged with investigating.
In short-I'm hooked!