Les témoins

Series 1 is excellent. The female lead detective, Sandra Winckler, is outstanding as she strives to prove herself in a male-dominated profession. Also outstanding is Paul Maisonneuve, the retired detective, who comes back to work with Winckler on solving a series of puzzling crimes that involve corpses being dug up and displayed in model homes. The plot slowly unfolds and comes to a satisfying conclusion in the final two episodes of Season 1. Seasons 2 is longer and during the second half, the behavior of Sandra Winckler is so unprofessional and implausible that it seriously lowers the quality of the series. Season 1 gets a 9; season 2 a 5.

The first season was good, but halfway through the second season I was screaming expletives at the female lead detective Sandra and her cohort Catherine. They takes matters into their own hands in such a stupid, careless, pigheaded fashion, I couldn't stand it. I do not suffer fools gladly.

Scandi-noir brings with it a set of expectations which Witnesses duly delivers. Female cop with suppressed issues -- check; a wintry French coastal village dominated by Broadchurch style cliffs -- check; improbable crime scenes that darkly hint at a miscreant with a messed up mind -- check, and the usual cool colour palette of blues and greys -- check.

Genre conventions are not a bad thing, if used deftly, and Witnesses delivers. Marie Dompnier as the female lead investigator, Sandra Winckler, is impressive as the astute cop who exorcises her insomniac nights by obsessively cleaning her apartment. Thierry Lhermitte plays the former high-flying policeman haunted by family tragedy, and as Winkler's former instructor who is implicated in the bizarre crime, suppresses dark secrets about his past. The location shooting in Le Tréport, with its strange funicular railway which is used as a disturbing feature in the first episode, is inspired, and the photography is superb.

This review is based on viewing the introductory episode, which sometimes tends to be dramatically the most engaging with television mini-series, such as The Bridge and its British-French counterpart, The Tunnel, but marred in subsequent weeks by a lurid story trajectory. Hopefully Witnesses will exhibit a narrative restraint where trust is placed in mood and character development without forsaking the sense of unease that is so well established in the opening hour.

French crime drama 'Witnesses' appears to take many of its cues from the superb Danish series 'The Killing': an intense, career focused, thoughtful but lonely female protagonist, with a tendency to go into dark places alone, coupled with a landscape that is always painted grey (in this case, the seaside town of Le Treport, which probably won't attract too many additional holiday makers as a result of its portrayal). Unfortuantly, there are also some problems, most notably, a complex plot that doesn't make a lot of sense. For example, it's clear that the crime under investigation involves someone seeking revenge on a retired detective, so the first thing the police do is to bring the person in question back onto the job specifically to lead the case. It's a standard trope of television detectives, of course, that they accidentally find a personal link to the case they're investigating; but it's a bit crazy to assume the reverse, that a known personal involvement would lead to someone being put in charge, especially as much of the tension in the drama comes from his own reluctance to share what he knows with his colleagues. The acting from the two leads was good, and I also liked the mood of the piece, but ultimately, the story just isn't very plausible or engaging.

I liked season 1 of Witnesses but season 2 is terrible. Preposterous plot and it violates an important rule of the genre: you don't introduce new characters at the very end of the series. There were so many questions which were never answered and the main detective was so unlikeable and self-centered, it was hard to root for her. Skip this one and watch something else!