Cardinal

The show may come across as plodding to people expecting an action series with a Hannibal Lector-like serial killer, but the show is a character-driven drama featuring a cast of flawed people very reminiscent of "Nordic Noir" shows such as "Wallander", but very unapologetic Canadian very with very good sense of place. Algonquin Bay on the show, and in the original novels, is quite clearly North Bay, Ontario in all but name (many of the same street names, located between the same lakes, and geographically in the same location), and the show, as with the novels, touches on the mix of English, French, and First Nations groups that form the culture of the area. And anyone who has lived in communities in northern Canada can sympathize with water lines freezing.

Billy Campbell does good work playing the troubled, but very good detective Cardinal, while Karinne Vanasse plays his partner Lise Delorme --also from the novels, lest people think they were casting a French-Canadian actress simply as a token--as equally competent, if not as experienced. The dynamic between is certainly not a copy of the Holmes-Watson relationship that people might be tempted to assume it is, and the pair do a very good job of portraying a detective paired up with a partner who is just as good as he is.

Overall, a very engrossing series again, as long as you aren't expecting shootouts or a serial killer leaving taunting clues.

I've seen 3 episodes so far. Actually the Algonquins were in this area, which was disputed in a different review. They were and remain very much in the North Bay region, which is where the fictional Algonquin Bay is based on. The role of Lise Delorm played by Karine Vanasse is spot on in my opinion. The Giles Blunt books depict Lise as French Canadian and again to dispute an earlier review, many of the northern Ontario towns are french or half-french - Mattawa near North Bay for instance. So it is not really a stretch as suggested. I've read all the John Cardinal books and I think the casting is excellent. I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the series before submitting a review, but the landscape captured in the series evokes the mood of the book very well.

I have to say, Canadian shows are catching my attention. It's the pacing as much as the quality of the production. American editing is a real problem for me as the scenes flick so fast I don't have time to take in the images and process to enjoy the emotions before you have to absorb the next image, and the next and next in split second action. I like lingering on a face (as long as you hired a real actor that is trained in the arts, not the couch) in order to capture what they are feeling. A technique that compensates for some lost book context if you have the right scene played out so you feel like you get inside their head. Non-American movies have always been attractive to me because of the more relaxed pacing that relies more upon acting. It's good to see this Canadian TV offerings as it captures you with a good story, moodiness and good character development. Except the young criminals. They are not as intense and believable as twisted, tortured beings. Next season will have new villains, and I hope they devote budget to those characters now that it's such a success. Also, perhaps second season bigger budget might mean more forensic realism and less relying on lingering dead body images. That's the one place I'd prefer the split-second images!

Billy Campbell (John Cardinal) is the Demián Bichir of Canadian TV drama. He looks at the camera and says his lines and you believe every word he says, but more than that, you would give anything to know what he's thinking.

I came across this gem on Hulu and it's fantastic. The acting is excellent, the scenery in the show is great. And absolutely NO political nonsense (aka Wokeness).