I honestly respects everyone's opinion and I will never state that someone else's thoughts and views are irrelevant, but I just need to highlight something here
The other reviewer submitted his comment when only six (out of the ten) episodes got aired on Belgian television and then already publicly claimed that the series was dumb, predictable and derivative. That's not fair. If you don't like a series after a few episodes, just stop watching but don't discourage other people to watch, because the creators deserve a chance to tell their FULL story. Admittedly I also wasn't very impressed after the first couple of episodes of "Beau Séjour", but the concept was curious and compelling enough to keep watching all ten episodes, and I must underline that every new episode was darker, more suspenseful and better than the one before.
The series centers on a teenage girl, Kato Hoeven, who wakes up one morning in a bloody bathtub in a sleazy hotel that has yet to be opened for the public. Kato quickly comes to the painful conclusion that she is dead – viciously murdered, in fact – but that her "ghost" is still around; presumably to solve her own murder. Five people can apparently still see and talk to Kato, including her alcoholic father, her jealous stepsister, the corrupt local chief of police, her secretive best friend and a handsome but mysterious young lad who recently got released from a psychiatric clinic. As the story unfolds, it rapidly becomes clear that all five of them in some way interacted with the poor girl during the night she got murdered. Is the killer one of these five person or does each of them need to solve their own little piece of the puzzle. The regular investigation is led by two intelligent police women, and they stumble upon several complicating leads, like a drug-trafficking network, previous unsolved murders, cuber-stalking and police involvement.
No, the premise of "Beau Séjour" isn't exactly innovative and the series is definitely modeled after a handful of successful American prime-time series, but you honestly can't blame the makers (who are all women, by the way) for being ambitious. Although I think there's still a number of defaults and illogicalities in the story, the screenplays are very well-written, with professional and excessive use of tense cliffhangers, unpredictable plot-twists and shocking revelations. Especially for a Belgian series aired on national television during prime time, "Beau Séjour" has a very dark and depressing atmosphere, features a fairly large amount of violence and extreme language and it certainly doesn't avoid sensitive subjects that are mostly still taboo. I simply must also mention that the series has a downright fantastic and ultimately moody theme-song!
The acting performances are really good, also thanks to the fact that the cast is allowed to speak in their own local vulgar dialects. Whenever actors and actresses are obliged to talk the so- called "civilized Dutch", like the cast in most films and TV-series originating from Flanders, the performances often suffer tremendously from this. The cast doesn't include Flanders' absolute finest players, but still there are several acclaimed names like Reinhilde Decleir, Barbara Serafian, Katrin Lohman and Jan Hammenecker. The rest of the cast is familiar as well, if you live in Belgium at least, and especially the young cast members give away solid performances. The grand finale – at the end of the 10th episode ONLY – is bleak and grim but satisfying. In case you think the denouement is far-fetched or implausible, then I suggest to watch the daily news, because horrifying tragedies like these really do happen.
At around the time of the 8th episode, I heard on the radio that the acclaimed company Netflix bought the international rights for airing the series. Here's to hoping it will have some success beyond the Belgian borders as well.
