Zone blanche

Villefranche is a small town without phone reception on the edge of a mysterious forest. The number of inhabitants is dwindling but there's a sharp rise in crime. Police inspector Laurène, once the victim of a crime herself, keeps on discovering fresh corpses.

Think crime drama with more than a little Blair Witch, Pan's Labyrinth and Twin Peaks thrown in.

This series came as a nice surprise. It has that catchy mix of dark, mystery ,fantasy, horror and drama set in a back woods French town. The old lore that keeps you tangled in Villefranche's stories. One not to be missed by fans of the genre!

The first 3-4 episodes of this show are good, but before we get halfway into the season the plot gets bogged down in needless complexity. Storylines that seemed important now dwindle into nothing, to be replaced by new storylines that don't seem to be going anywhere. Characters suddenly appear for no reason at all. And the biggest weakness is the sheer implausibility of the situations and character motivations. The result is a hot mess, a series that can't seem to figure out what it wants to be - a dark crime drama? A horror/monster series? It's hard to tell. Kudos for the high production values and creepy atmosphere, but spooky synth music and chittering monster noises can't make up for the absence of a coherent and logical storyline.

I just started up episode four. So far, I am enjoying it. The scenery is absolutely beautiful. The one thing that bugs me though is in the first episode they mention that the town they are in doesn't get phone reception yet the police chief is constantly on her cell phone. Weird.

This French series is set in Villefranche, a remote village where the crime rate in noticeably higher than the national average. As the story begins prosecutor Franck Siriani arrives in town to investigate what is going on; he finds himself working with Major Laurène Weiss of the local Gendarmerie and her small team. They are very different characters; Siriani is allergic to just about everything and Weiss is a tough woman who, when eighteen, cut off two fingers to escape after being chained up, in the vast forest that surrounds the town, by an unknown kidnapper. Each episode tends to include a 'case of the week' as well as ongoing investigations into the disappearance of the mayor's daughter, who went missing six months before the series started, and Weiss's attempts to discover what really happened to her in the forest all those years ago.

I really enjoyed this series; early on I got a real 'Twin Peaks' vibe but thankfully this didn't turn out to be a Gallic rip-off of that great show. Yes we have a town in a heavily forested part of the country where weird, possibly supernatural, things are happening but they are dealt with in a very different way. There is a great sense of mystery in the longer term story lines as well as the episodic stories. The location provides a great atmosphere; especially the forest scenes. The characters are interesting and nicely varied and the cast does a fine job bringing these characters to life. Season two closes with questions unanswered so hopefully we will get a third season some time. Overall I'd definitely recommend this to fans of intriguing and slightly strange mysteries.

These comments are based on watching the series in French with English subtitles.

This is a great show. has the same vibe as DARK. The dubbing is fantastic and the acting is really good.