OPJ Pacifique Sud

I couldn't bear watching this series except for the first four episodes. It is not only very boring but also -as it also happens with another police French series Tropiques criminels - tries to indoctrinate watchers with questionable points of view as if watchers were unable to think by themselves. It is unrealistical and ridiculous having a policeman going nuts because the person who he is questioning calls gays by a pejorative name or that the chief police gets so drunk she can not say if the man he has sleeped with forced her or not. On the good side there are no blood or nasty sequences. On the bad side it is terribly boring, all the characters are unsympathetic and uninteresting. There is more time in each episode dedicated to crew members' personal life rather than the case they are working on and if writers thought we are supposed to find this interesting were totally wrong. Chief police is a woman unable to control her own life and who - as usual- has a troublesome irritating teenager daughter who blames her mother all day long. (Why do most screenwriters describe teenagers as spoiled unbearable and egotistical is something to be considered - maybe they are frustrated parents with that kind of children?). Exactly the same as in Tropiques criminels. Maybe both series share the same screenwriters.

The new police on the block is disagreeable, he does not like to work with the crew and acts arrogantly. None of the characters makes you interested to know how they private lives run so why write about it? Maybe if the crew was more likeable or maybe if the cases were more interesting and would take more screen time it would be more interesting. But as it is is a totally time waster.

This is a great series with diverse and interesting cast. The Island setting give a good insight to both the Island life and the colonial background and mixture of cultures.

Very interesting how the Melanesian culture and way of life is respected and preserved in what is basically a French controlled colony.

The story lines are varied and interesting and often centre around the personal lives of the main cast, while not intruding too much into the actual crime being solved.

For some reason the second series moves to Reunion Island, a few thousand miles from the original series. For me it has lost some credibility and the "Pacific" feel and I hope it moves back to New Caledonia.

Look forward to seeing more.

Its impressive virtue remains the fact be more than a crime serie. Family problems, relations, social cases, the respiration of a team , the nice exploration of vulnerabilities, the way to see life and the learning of each character from the others are the good points of each episode, from integration in new world to the manner to see the guilties. Short, people portraits.

A flurry of beautiful people who also happen to be cops well why not ... all the episodes I have seen are in La Réunion which looks like Hawaii would to Americans; palm trees idyllic beaches and coastline

• the crime stories are usually pretty pedestrian and really not that riveting ; the affairs of the coppers in the precinct are way more interesting so in effect it is a soap centred around those 5 characters with crimes to solve as a sideline

• the combination of handsome actors plus handsome settings really makes this relaxing viewing. It is an oddity this bit of France stuck 700 km east of Madagascar with a population which is mostly former inhabitants of the southern Indian French colonies of yesteryear .... so on top of everything else it is quite the travelogue

Enjoyable light-hearted viewing peppered occasionally with mildly irritating Woke prods but hey what is not these days ?? :)

PS I have now seen many episodes set in New Caledonia which predate the Réunion episodes and same exact same reaction to those too.