Mehhh. The style is hardly new. We've seen it a million times before. Two sassy people meet accidentally, in bad circumstances, immediately fall out, acerbic lines ensue. Then they realise they will be working together/running into each other all the time. And so a love/hate relationship is already set up. Will they, won't they?, is the topic of the next few episodes/series, I guess . . .
The problem is, it has the hallmarks of too many of the cross-boundary dramas I have seen recently. They have different nationalities playing against each other, set in one country. And they are often made by two or more contrasting nations (in this case Denmark & the UK). The different culture thing is not new to TV, over the past few years, but sadly in most circumstances it does not mesh well in a television drama. It just makes for confusing TV. I think the studios release these kinds of multi-nationality dramas, hoping lots of different cultures will also want to view it. As if all that matters is selling the drama to as many nations as possible.
Bring back TV that has a direct purpose. To entertain us. Plus, in the case of a police drama, to have us scope out 'whodunnit' along with a realistic lead detective character in front of us on the TV screen. At least that way we are using our brains to solve the puzzle. Engaging TV. That's the way it should still be made.
Instead we have something very much like 'The Mallorca Files', yet again. But this time with the Brit in the male role & as the renegade, while the European takes on the female role & that of the state detective who is oh so confined by the cop rulebook.
'Midsomer Murders' has done lightweight cop drama for years. And (a few episodes aside!), largely to great avail. It is what it is and no more. It does not have pretensions to being anything other than good fun. And I love the French series 'Candace Renoir' and 'Balthazar'. They both work extremely well too. Great crime stories, with likeable characters and interplay. All these cop series have the pitch in the right area. They all mesh perfectly. But this UK-&-Danish series set in Cannes does not . . .
The characters mainly feel unreal, as if the production team had to play it safe. Which they probably did. It looks like they nearly duplicated characters - and lines - from other shows. And with little original angle added . . . Why, oh why, just repeat things?!
Oh, and parts of the storylines are so improbable they are incredible! DO tell me how a clever baddie managed to leave evidence of their ill-doing in an unlocked van?! And in part of the art gallery property that was strangely left accessible to all attendees at the gallery event?! Was the baddie a child?! (P. S. no offence intended to children, here!) No! Daft?! . . . I think idiocy would be a more appropriate description for what that was!
There is not enough in-depth characterisation of the lead protagonists, and absolutely no enticing plots to the crime part of the episodes. In other words, little to actually care about or believe in.
Even the backplots as to why 'King' lost contact with his daughter - and why the cop father of 'Delmasse' is in trouble - don't really appeal to me as much as they should. Because I don't like the empty crime part to the TV series. I do not like being led to believe that I am investing in a crime drama, when I am investing in nothing close to the genre. What I am viewing is instead vapid nonsense.
The series is just a waste of some beautiful locations. And if I had WANTED to watch an armchair travel series I'd have hunted out a travelogue TV programme, not this dirge of non-drama.
I can almost see the subtitles that will be plastered on the screen if the studio sell this series to 1001 other countries. Oh dear . . . Why bother, with a script that is largely as uninspiring as this?!
We've recently had 'The Madame Blanc Mysteries' fed to us on UK TV. Again, much the same flaws prevailed with that programme as with this. And then 'Murder in Provence', followed by 'Signora Volpe', were dumped on the viewers. Some excellent actors are the key players in those dramas. And the performers - in all these series that are set on the European continent - do their best, but, with material to work with that at times is hackneyed hash, little can be done.
Yawn. Let's get original, TV executives.
We are about to stop watching some of the other cross-boundary dramas. Sadly, they are just too much work to comprehend the style of output, and this effort is not worth the payoff. Give us a good crime plot to make an episode worth our time, and we might just try watching another one or two. Maybe . . .
As for this series alone:-
(1) The whole series needs to be reenergised, and given a different framework: less predictable safety, and more clever storylines. A more dynamic style would give it the lift it badly needs.
(2) A less Peter-and-Jane level of dialogue is badly needed. English is a complex language and has lots of nuances. The tone of delivery is often lost in the script in this drama, particularly when lines are spoken by actors who aren't native English-speakers. Some of these are the lead players, and they seem truly out of their comfort zone with the English language dialogue. The drama needs subtlety brought into the script, so that we can fully understand what the characters are really saying and feeling. Again, in this flaw I do not blame one team (in this case, the scriptwriters): they are after all just one party, and are writing what their bosses at the TV studio tell them to, and in the style they are told to.
There are, thankfully, a handful of redeeming factors to this series:-
(a) At least in this drama the two leads are not BOTH cops, PI's, or just hobby-investigators. So some original conflict is brought in to the plot. And we are left to puzzle out the intriguing question of just who 'Harry King' really is . . .
(b) And Jamie Bamber is bang-on in his role, as the slightly suspect but playful English gentleman-about-town, who seems to know a lot of people in all the right places. Delightful characterisation.
(c) The best thing overall is the occasional excellent script line - of barbed but humorous repartee. For example in the first episode - "Death of a Jester" - in a scene at a modern art gallery, while the 2 leads are viewing the art pieces: 'Harry King' says to 'Lieutenant Delmasse', when she bluntly shows him 'the finger' to indicate he should get lost: "Ah, the digitus impudicus . . . Beautiful!" Wit, at last.
A few positive features, then, in the characterisation and storyline. And it is badly needed, to make the series stand on its own merits in any real way.
But it is not enough to keep me watching. After lasting through episode three I shall be sad-but-glad to be hanging up my spurs on this drama, mid-series.
One of the best TV programmes that had the 'will they, won't they?' romance premise was made a long time ago: 'Remington Steele', back in the '80s. It was warm, witty, likeable, playful, and - though a lightweight series re the detective issue - had some fine storylines across the episodes. And the flirting was believable. It lasted 94 episodes - over 5 series. That tells you everything about the success of the programme!
My best advice? Go seek out Pierce Brosnan as 'Remington Steele', and you'll find a better alternative viewing: a superb & fun series well worth the watch.
The problem is, it has the hallmarks of too many of the cross-boundary dramas I have seen recently. They have different nationalities playing against each other, set in one country. And they are often made by two or more contrasting nations (in this case Denmark & the UK). The different culture thing is not new to TV, over the past few years, but sadly in most circumstances it does not mesh well in a television drama. It just makes for confusing TV. I think the studios release these kinds of multi-nationality dramas, hoping lots of different cultures will also want to view it. As if all that matters is selling the drama to as many nations as possible.
Bring back TV that has a direct purpose. To entertain us. Plus, in the case of a police drama, to have us scope out 'whodunnit' along with a realistic lead detective character in front of us on the TV screen. At least that way we are using our brains to solve the puzzle. Engaging TV. That's the way it should still be made.
Instead we have something very much like 'The Mallorca Files', yet again. But this time with the Brit in the male role & as the renegade, while the European takes on the female role & that of the state detective who is oh so confined by the cop rulebook.
'Midsomer Murders' has done lightweight cop drama for years. And (a few episodes aside!), largely to great avail. It is what it is and no more. It does not have pretensions to being anything other than good fun. And I love the French series 'Candace Renoir' and 'Balthazar'. They both work extremely well too. Great crime stories, with likeable characters and interplay. All these cop series have the pitch in the right area. They all mesh perfectly. But this UK-&-Danish series set in Cannes does not . . .
The characters mainly feel unreal, as if the production team had to play it safe. Which they probably did. It looks like they nearly duplicated characters - and lines - from other shows. And with little original angle added . . . Why, oh why, just repeat things?!
Oh, and parts of the storylines are so improbable they are incredible! DO tell me how a clever baddie managed to leave evidence of their ill-doing in an unlocked van?! And in part of the art gallery property that was strangely left accessible to all attendees at the gallery event?! Was the baddie a child?! (P. S. no offence intended to children, here!) No! Daft?! . . . I think idiocy would be a more appropriate description for what that was!
There is not enough in-depth characterisation of the lead protagonists, and absolutely no enticing plots to the crime part of the episodes. In other words, little to actually care about or believe in.
Even the backplots as to why 'King' lost contact with his daughter - and why the cop father of 'Delmasse' is in trouble - don't really appeal to me as much as they should. Because I don't like the empty crime part to the TV series. I do not like being led to believe that I am investing in a crime drama, when I am investing in nothing close to the genre. What I am viewing is instead vapid nonsense.
The series is just a waste of some beautiful locations. And if I had WANTED to watch an armchair travel series I'd have hunted out a travelogue TV programme, not this dirge of non-drama.
I can almost see the subtitles that will be plastered on the screen if the studio sell this series to 1001 other countries. Oh dear . . . Why bother, with a script that is largely as uninspiring as this?!
We've recently had 'The Madame Blanc Mysteries' fed to us on UK TV. Again, much the same flaws prevailed with that programme as with this. And then 'Murder in Provence', followed by 'Signora Volpe', were dumped on the viewers. Some excellent actors are the key players in those dramas. And the performers - in all these series that are set on the European continent - do their best, but, with material to work with that at times is hackneyed hash, little can be done.
Yawn. Let's get original, TV executives.
We are about to stop watching some of the other cross-boundary dramas. Sadly, they are just too much work to comprehend the style of output, and this effort is not worth the payoff. Give us a good crime plot to make an episode worth our time, and we might just try watching another one or two. Maybe . . .
As for this series alone:-
(1) The whole series needs to be reenergised, and given a different framework: less predictable safety, and more clever storylines. A more dynamic style would give it the lift it badly needs.
(2) A less Peter-and-Jane level of dialogue is badly needed. English is a complex language and has lots of nuances. The tone of delivery is often lost in the script in this drama, particularly when lines are spoken by actors who aren't native English-speakers. Some of these are the lead players, and they seem truly out of their comfort zone with the English language dialogue. The drama needs subtlety brought into the script, so that we can fully understand what the characters are really saying and feeling. Again, in this flaw I do not blame one team (in this case, the scriptwriters): they are after all just one party, and are writing what their bosses at the TV studio tell them to, and in the style they are told to.
There are, thankfully, a handful of redeeming factors to this series:-
(a) At least in this drama the two leads are not BOTH cops, PI's, or just hobby-investigators. So some original conflict is brought in to the plot. And we are left to puzzle out the intriguing question of just who 'Harry King' really is . . .
(b) And Jamie Bamber is bang-on in his role, as the slightly suspect but playful English gentleman-about-town, who seems to know a lot of people in all the right places. Delightful characterisation.
(c) The best thing overall is the occasional excellent script line - of barbed but humorous repartee. For example in the first episode - "Death of a Jester" - in a scene at a modern art gallery, while the 2 leads are viewing the art pieces: 'Harry King' says to 'Lieutenant Delmasse', when she bluntly shows him 'the finger' to indicate he should get lost: "Ah, the digitus impudicus . . . Beautiful!" Wit, at last.
A few positive features, then, in the characterisation and storyline. And it is badly needed, to make the series stand on its own merits in any real way.
But it is not enough to keep me watching. After lasting through episode three I shall be sad-but-glad to be hanging up my spurs on this drama, mid-series.
One of the best TV programmes that had the 'will they, won't they?' romance premise was made a long time ago: 'Remington Steele', back in the '80s. It was warm, witty, likeable, playful, and - though a lightweight series re the detective issue - had some fine storylines across the episodes. And the flirting was believable. It lasted 94 episodes - over 5 series. That tells you everything about the success of the programme!
My best advice? Go seek out Pierce Brosnan as 'Remington Steele', and you'll find a better alternative viewing: a superb & fun series well worth the watch.