Maigret

Love this series. Watching these episodes on Talking pictures tv. We never got the chance to see the French version of Maigret when it was originally made in the 1990s. Bruno Cremer captured the character of the inspector perfectly. Bruno's Maigret can be witty, amusing and grumpy if people irritate him. He is very fond of his food and drink. Sadly we have got to the last episode in the series.i will really miss it.

British tv sadly at present is just about box ticking controlled by the looney left. Watching this series captures just how good a tv series can be.

I'm not familiar with other French tv programs or if they are all up this high standard.

An excellent detective series for any nation, and yet I've seen a lot of them, ancient or modern.

Quickly, what differentiates this Maigret 1991 from other detective series is the atmosphere, the weightlessness and above all the reality that sticks to the skin of this universe.

Maigret is a gruff bear, certainly, but he has the gift of empathy: he loves people (even delinquents) and that can be seen on the screen.

Everyone has a chance with him: he takes his time to live with them, to live in the dirt, to live in the filth of this world in which he appears like a breath of air.

I like Bruno Cremer in this series because he is both human and the God of this world.

I'm more than tired of the series that we see too often in videos on demand, in which the houses don't have an ounce of dust, in which everything is smooth, all the actors are beautiful and all the investigations are solved with DNA.

No, that's not the truth.

The truth, the reality, is rather in the darkness and filth depicted by this series.

For me, it is masterful.

There have been some outstanding portrayals of Maigret, the most recent Rowan Atkinson versions being quite good, but Bruno Cremer best invokes the spirit of books. Maigret is NOT a procedural, although they are certainly mysteries. They are about people and the human condition, best demonstrated by Maigret's compassion. Sometimes for victims, and yes, sometimes even for the criminals. If there is any failing at all in this fine series, it is the relative absence of his wife, who features more strongly in the books and some other versions. One of the most re-watchable series, I had depended on MHZ to view it and finally obtained a DVD set of the entire series. If you love mysteries, you simply can NOT skip over Maigret.

Well......having recently obtained MhZ Choice thru Roku, will be able to do a sloooow binge-watch this whole Winter of my now recent favorite French detective, Maigret! I had seen bits and pieces on PBS, but MhZ has them all: all 9 years! Dragging out my special snacks, along with tooth-picks to prop up my eyelids and eye-drops to reduce the tell-tale redness, its going to be an occupied Winter fer shur! Deepest thanks to French television! Viva le France! I wonder if I'll be able to speak French when finished? EMBRACE the sub-Titles!

I am a huge fan of the MhZ International Mystery series where you can catch this show every few weeks. They alternate with Italian, German, Swedish, and in the past Norwegian mysteries. Jules Maigret is the kind of dad you would like to have had growing up. He is intelligent, sophisticated, speaks French, and quite handsome for a big guy. What makes the show hilarious is that he is the only one in each series who has any wisdom whatsoever. The other characters dance around him like complete imbeciles trying to trick him while he smokes his pipe and think that he isn't paying attention. He is a French Sherlock Holmes, without a side kick, though now his nephew has joined in on the action lately and it seems he will stay. The nephew is interested in girls more than crime though and pulls out the machismo whenever he appears to be slacking off, to impress his uncle. His uncle is not impressed though but as a devoted family member tries to teach him the trade. If you love classic film, Masterpiece theater, and generally watch British humor or mysteries on PBS, you have to look for MhZ International programs and find this. They are on Facebook as well.