Simply A Masterpiece

From my favorite movies..

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Okay, so I exaggerate a bit. It's a personal nomination for worst television series of the last 50 years. And, of course, it's only the worst television series that I've personally seen in the last 50 years. I'm sure there are worse coming out of places like ... I don't know ... Albania, but of all the series I've seen in the last 50 years, this comes right at the bottom of the list. No question about it.Let's just summarize the nonsense and then we can all move on to something else shall we?It starts with an empty bus of corpsicles (i.e. frozen dead men). No obvious relationship between any of them other than they all disappeared starting around 3 years ago.The we have the appearance of the amnesiac red-headed Catherine. Over the remainder of the first episode and into the start of the second we learn that:1) Catherine was kidnapped 3 years go 2) her amnesia is drug induced. 3) While being held, she gave birth to a baby 4) All the dead men on the bus are her ex-lovers 5) She was forced to give up the baby 6) and then ... get this ... the reason she was forced to give up the baby was that she wasn't considered worthy of raising the baby.I'm not giving away anything in all of the above as it all comes early on in the first episode except for one point early in the second. No spoilers there as if it was possible to spoil any of this rubbish.Think about point 6 a bit. Forced to give up the baby because she wasn't worthy of raising the baby.Wouldn't it have just been easier NOT to have kidnapped the baby, not to impregnate her, and then she wouldn't have had the baby in the first place so there wouldn't have been any need to save the baby by taking it from her? Geez.So why did we continue to watch this preposterous plot?Well, in ep. 1 and 2, my wife and I are thinking this all sounds a bit intriguing and I'm sure it will get better now that they have set the scene and we discover what is really going on. Perhaps a plot to create babies to sell on the black market? That would have at least been mildly more logical that what they gave us. In ep 3 and 4., we're thinking this is getting ridiculous but maybe we're missing something so let's continue as it has to get better and I'm sure it will make sense soon. Series 1 was okay; series 2 couldn't be this bad, could it?By ep 5 and 6, it's just a case of we know it's rubbish but we started so we may as well finish.Ep 7? Well, I actually enjoyed ep. 7 I'm embarrassed to say. Decent bit of tension, mystery. Still didn't think it made any sense but at least it was mildly enjoyable.Ep 8? Well, if the series was the 'worst series of the last 50 years', then ep. 8 was the "worst single episode of any series made in the last 50 years." Just preposterous, ridiculous, atrocious, mind-numbing, wrist-slashing, drivel. What more can one say?Oh, and just as an aside. My wife and I are both convinced that throughout the first 7 and a half episodes, Catherine refers to the baby she had to give up as her son (en francais, mon "fils"). That's what the Engish subtitles said and that's what we heard in the french (we are both reasonably fluent). Midway through ep. 8, and it suddenly becomes "ma fille" (i.e. a girl) and remained so to the end. My wife and I both caught this and both asked each other if we'd misunderstood or missed something. We're convinced not. The writers just switched from a boy to the girl half way through the final episode. A sex-change operation on a 6 month old baby? Weird.I could go on but what's the point. Please, please, I beg of you: don't waste 8 hours of your lives on this travesty as we did. Find something else. Anything. It couldn't possible be worse than this.

Another IMDb reviewer (daggersineyes?) liked season 1, but urged readers vigorously to 'pass' on Season 2. But Season 2 started with a bus full of dead frozen people and a pretty amnesiac trying to reconnect with her family. Compelling?! Yeah, I should have listened to dagger. I also enjoyed Season 1 with its mysterious piles of bodies turning up, implicating a high official in murder. But Season 2 fell off the tracks after a few sessions. I can only imagine that the writers thought they were doing a 4-episode offering, but then we're told to expand it to 8----& they went "huh? We have identified the killer & his cohorts and possible motive'(the guy's a loony-tune... What else would explain it?)... Why would we need 4 more episodes?" Seriously, the writers should have just insisted on writing a new 4-parter instead of producing this drivel. It was as bad as those C-westerns of the early 40's with Nazi war criminals... And trucks! Typically, an 8-session season might be 3 story-lines (4+2+2) or whatever... Anything but a dragged-out bit of nonsense over an entire season.I have seen 8-parters done in mystery series, but the scope was broader, of course. When you start with a bus full of dead people, you have to 'cut to the chase' fairly quickly . Oh well.. next time (I listen to 'dagger').Not belittling the performances here, but the story was disgraceful! Not something the writers want on their resumés, I can assure you (O, you wrote t-h-a-t? That the one where 2 villains commit suicide? Always wondered what you guys were thinking ... We'll call you - don't call us..)

As a keen follower of mostly British and Scandinavian crime dramas, I try at times to broaden my horizon and find out what other nationalities/countries have come to offer. Thanks to the site here plus Wikipedia, it is now easy to look around and see what is going on elsewhere, together with brief synopsis and comments.As I liked Braquo and Engrenages, then Les témoins met my eye as well - and caught my attention from the very first moments. The producers are apparently the admirers of Scandinavian film noir, but this was not annoying, on the contrary - the concept, camera-work, music score and mood were catchy to follow, and the story "started working" at once, making you ponder on and over what could and would really happen. Leading characters and actors were distinct (particularly Thierry Lhermitte as former police chief Paul Maisonneuve and Marie Dompnier as police lieutenant Sandra Winckler) and the plot had interesting twists and turns, full of mysticism, but without interventions from supernatural forces; plus the nature in North-Eastern France is very different from we are used to see in French films, accentuating the similarities with Western Scandinavia and Northern England and Scotland. All in all, a good series, and the number of episodes (6) is just right to obtain a versatile, yet not protracted and not discursive crime series.

I've just finished watching this series following its run on Channel 4 in the UK, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It has bags of atmosphere, some fabulous and very intense acting, and a great central character in the stunning Marie Dompnier. Certainly an actress to watch.In addition, considering its 6 hour running time and novelistic structure, not to mention 2 intertwined mysteries to keep the viewer guessing, it really jogs along at quite a clip, with as much intrigue and incident per episode as many mini-series have in their entire running times.There were a few plotting issues that lose it one point out of 10, but otherwise I thought this was as gripping as anything I've seen on TV for a while.