Finnish broadcaster Nelonen has launched Pimeä Puoli (The Dark Side), a true-crime series in which every dramatised scene is produced with generative AI. It premiered on 2 October 2026 on Nelonen and its streaming service Ruutu, after a press release on 24 September. Riku Rantala and former detective Kale Puonti host.
“Artificial intelligence does not replace the filmmaker’s vision, but it gives us one more new tool.”
Juuso Syrjä, director of the AI dramatisations · c21media.net ↗
The series draws on 20 Finnish cases spread over five decades, ten of them in the first season. The opening episode reconstructs the abduction of a woman from the Herlin industrial family, taken from her Helsinki home, with the trail ending at a soundproofed booth in a Turku flat. Later episodes include a 1978 plane hijacking, a hairdresser's murder in Porvoo, a killing in a Helsinki hotel, crime boss Raimo Andersson's last night and a 2025 container case at Vuosaari harbour.
A team of eight AI artists builds the scenes with image and video models, working from designs by director Juuso Syrjä. The hosts' studio conversations are filmed in the ordinary way, with no AI involved, and the dramatisations never show the faces of victims or criminals. Warner Bros International Television Production Finland makes the series, and C21 names Helena Hyvärinen as writer and director.
Series artwork for The Dark Side with its hosts, used by C21Media (620x349)
Image: C21Media
Warner Bros says the technique lets the show depict every turn of a case, including moments with no footage, rather than replace its creators. Its Finnish growth chief predicts that human-led AI dramatisation will soon be as routine in documentaries as graphics or archive material. Nelonen presents the look as cinematic, closer to high-end international true crime. The outlets differ on novelty: the press release says it is reportedly the world's first such format, while C21 says first in Finland and among the first anywhere.
The production method is meant to be reused for an international version of the series, which is where the format is expected to travel next.