Engrenages

I've just binged the full 7 seasons, 76 episodes, 57 hours. And every hour, superb.

This highly complex police drama from France is incredibly good. The plots are complex and tightly written. The production values increase with every year, and camera work is very good by season 3.

I love that the police and judges are often flawed, and make sometimes terrible mistakes. In particular, the lead, Caroline Proust, takes incredible stress and presents it on screen wonderfully. I also love how the writers provide redemption for the characters when they are broken or in danger, often through unexpected twists.

There are often amazing twists in the season plots, and each year is constantly fresh and new-feeling. It's extremely rare to see any plot event or dialogue that doesn't ring true.

This is extraordinary television. It's no wonder it's moving now into it's eighth season.

Must see.

Saw episode three of season 2 last night and I can vouch that this one is turning into a real potboiler like season 1. The series works on the basis of one big plot line and a series of more minor ones which link together. Sometimes, a new minor case is solved in a single episode like the "echangistes" (wife swappers) or the gay test pilot last night, or it is carried over to the next episode. Again, like last season, the police are morally fragile like the criminals but invariably come good, the defense lawyers are on the crooked side and the crims vary between violent, amoral wrongdoers and vile, completely sadistic and downright evil wrongdoers. There are some brilliantly funny moments too. As for 'racial stereotyping' commented on earlier, grow up! That's absolute b*llocks. Lots of non-white people live in Paris so some of them will be criminals n'est ce pas? Watch out for gorgeous moneygrabbing redhead Maitre Carlsson who is getting involved with helping arch criminals and getting paid 3000 euros per case instead of 300 and buying loads of new outfits. Expect a big showdown between Laure and her before the end of the season. This is great TV, far superior and much less formulaic than CSI NY/LV/Miami. Give it a go. I for one, am hooked.

Fast-paced, like NY in the 70's, dirty cops with hearts of gold, people you despise but grow to love, there are car chases, bombs, gangs, vice, serial killers, very little glamour, nothing fake (like US TV) - colleagues, family, friends, bereavement, retirement, freemasons, wrong steps, putting the wrong steps right. Oh la la - so much going on and it just keeps on going on, not one slow episode as far as I can remember. I just don't know what I'm going to do when it all ends in a couple of episodes. So sad to be no longer spending my evenings with Gilou, Laure and Josephine.

Engrenages is a Paris-based police procedural making no concessions to the easy-viewing requirements which deaden its English speaking equivalents. Dowdy police, incompetent lawyers, crims in grey shading into the deepest black. Acting, camera-work, lighting and print quality is imaginative and thorough. Each episode had an exemplary cliff-hanging or shock ending. The rather delayed and somewhat cryptic sub-titles make it tough for non-native speakers, but it has done wonders for my bog-French. Sheer pleasure: the news that they are shooting a new series is excellent. Lets hope it goes out again on BBC3 or 4 - much too demanding, even for BBC2.

While the approach is not new, the execution is excellent.

Firstly the stories interweave and become more engrossing with their machinations, the "engrenages".

Secondly the pace is engaging so its impossible to foresee the next part, and that is because it's well written and intelligently for the viewer; not disguised by quick cuts to dazzle the eye but then frustrate by its tedium or obviousness.

Thirdly, the cast is right and well directed. Characters are alive with a range of human flaws. Maybe Albert Camus was the script editor overseeing the lines of each character's arc.

Unlike some police dramas this one doesn't pull its punches - quite literally - and for those of us all too bored with the US legal system, the presentation of the way the French one does its business, is another interesting aspect to the show.(Along with all the slang.) And finally, watching Caroline Proust and Audrey Fleurot (the former plays a strong brigade police captain; the latter plays a lawyer without morality) is the coup de grace.