Notre-Dame

At first I thought the series had potential: the nonlinear story and the photography caught me at the beginning and made me want to continue watching. But from the second episode on, you have to ignore a lot of nonsense to keep watching. The series is supposed to be a realistic drama, but one of the main characters, Max, is like Bruce Willis in Die Hard. Apart from a few firefights, all characters are dumb and reckless.

I felt like it deserved a better direction, cause the plot isn't bad. For the amount of money spent in the production (the effects are great), they could've invested a bit more and delivered something more credible. It's only worth watching if you like the French language, otherwise I wouldn't have finished it.

I get what they were trying to do here; the human stories of nine Parisians--during the night the cathedral burned and how the event was a common factor in all of them.

Except ... not really.

In theory, it could have been very good, and some parts, like the skill of the producers in integrating real footage of the fire with their film, is good.

It has a few excellent dramatic moments but although some of the story lines jell, others don't and most have nothing to do with the fire except as a momentary distraction.

I also get that in making a TV drama you have to take some license with reality. But the howlers about the firefighters pointed out by others here are valid. That lackadaisical treatment might have passed in 1960s or '70s but audiences are much more sophisticated now.

And I get that in real life, even during unfolding disasters, people aren't always focused on the event. The French pride themselves on their style and skill with psychology.

But the character who keeps saying that 'everyone remembers what they were doing when Michael Jackson died' is jarring. I don't. A lot of people don't. And in the context of a story what does this even mean?

Are we supposed to compare the burning of Notre-Dame of Paris to Jackson's death?

Good psychology in that it sticks on my mind but bad in that--besides the interspersed footage of the real fire--this maudlin comparison is going to be my takeaway.

That and the haunting suspicion that this whole thing was employed by the screenwriters as a vehicle for a lot of leftover plot notions rejected from other scripts and all crammed into this one.

Considered as a soap opera this would pass. As a soap opera with a fire in the background it stumbles along. As a drama about the fire itself--which is how it was sold to us--falls flat on its face. You're much better off just watching archived news reports.

This show is ok, its not fantastic, but not bad either.

This is not purely disaster thriller or some action peace, this is more of a day in person's life kinda show.

It follows multiple story lines that begin, evolve and conclude, not necessarily directly related to the fire. Stories are not very sophisticated, like boy looking for his dad or dad looking for his daughter, few flashbacks to give context to the characters.

Musical score is good, if you like symphonic orchestra, opera kind of music, its definitely one of the strong sides of this show. There were some moments without dialogue, just scenes with music.

So yes, its ok overall.

A notable series, following the events of Notre Dame, how the lives of several Parisians - Firefighters, Journalists, Citizens was involved in it. Also a progressive dive into each characters lives and the emotions attached with this historical monument simmers across each episode. Though created as a mini-series, each episode is about 45-50 minutes long which gives the director enough time to develop the story and piece it together along the way, with tiny glimpses into past moments. Dealing with loss, self identity, finding love amidst all this choas, are a few moments highlighted on this spectrum.

In my opinion it would've been alot better if it focused all of its attention on the fire, I can get that they packed it with all the other stuff to prolong the runtime, but still.

I don't know if it's the actors or the writing but most of the characters are pretty unlikeable, I never found a f to give about most of them.

I understand that the firefighters had their breathing masks off so we can see their faces but it's still pretty jarring to see people run into fires and not have a proper source of oxygen, just made me worry about the actors tbh.

Gets a 4 coz French is a cool language and at least it was short. Would not recommend unless you've watched literally everything else on Netflix, even then, just take a nap instead.