Maigret: la nuit du carrefour

I'll be honest, the first two offerings I wasn't exactly full of praise for, but this third offering has very much changed my opinion. Everything feels settled, solid and somehow familiar. I now feel used to the concept of Rowan Atkinson as Maigret, and I feel he himself is now more comfortable in the role. Night at the Crossroads isn't my favourite story, but as a production it came to life, the performances were first rate, Thomas Wlaschiha stole the show for me, as he so often does, but he was fantastic, so diverse an actor. Lucy Cohu I still think is a joy as Maigret's wife. The only criticism I had was the performance of Kevin McNally, who's Grandjean was a little too much, somehow it seemed like he over-relished his role of villain, and was a little hammy.

Great production values, this episode I feel has turned the series around, I now cannot wait for the next episode. A very solid 8/10

Lucyrfisher : "The production team have got everything right down to the last detail." Almost. The stories plays in 1930 or there abouts. I clearly see a peugeot 403 from 1956 driving out of the frame somewhere during the movie. But maybe they changed the time period for this episode

Another wonderful story from Georges Simenon. The production team have got everything right down to the last detail. The garage full of old cars, the unmade roads, the shabby kitchen of the decaying mansion. The bizarre inhabitants, the girl who has to be locked in her room "for safety". But ultimately it's disappointing. Rowan Atkinson is a good Maigret, but he lacks the character's humour (which Michael Gambon had in spades). Atkinson is too solemn, and - fatally - the writers and director have made him soft-centred. He twinkles slightly at the girl, when she tries to seduce him, but in a melancholy way. Gambon would have flirted back. She is impressed that he doesn't respond, but merely treats her burned fingers. I feel this incident is not in the book (the writers needed a pretext to bring them closer), even though Simenon is always concerned about what characters eat and drink. (Maigret decides the girl needs some poached eggs – but surely Maigret can't cook?)

Madame Maigret is given a plonkingly 21st-century speech about the difficulty of being married to a policeman. Anachronistic, and also Cop Show Cliché No. 794.

And finally: the director loves filming characters in long shot while they are making a long speech full of plot exposition. And many young actors think that naturalism means keeping your face immobile. I turned on the subtitles.

Maigret is back in this third episode of the Rowan Atkinson era. The set design and costumes are superb. Bravo to ITV!

As usual, I couldn't entirely follow the plot -- partly, let me add, because it was hard to make out all the dialogue -- but the look of this production was superb, ditto the atmosphere, the sense of time and place. (Those Hungarian location managers deserve much praise.) The performances are all first-rate. Rowan Atkinson is a surprisingly sour, solemn, owlish, glum, taciturn little Maigret, and he's not especially likable; that's far from the character I remember from the books, and one wonders why Madame Maigret is so faithful to him. However, he does leave one with the impression that he'd be capable of actually solving a knotty murder. And it was pleasing, in this particular story, to see Dorothy Atkinson again (surely no relation) -- always a fascinating actress.