Black Spot
Season 1 (2017) – 8 51-minute episodes
Season 2 (2019) – 8 50-minute episodes
Season 3 (2021) – TBA ?
5 out of 5 paws
Villefranche is a small, isolated town in north eastern France surrounded by a dense 50,000-acre forest. Communications with the outside world are difficult – wi-fi, cell phones, and sat-nav coverage do not work well, therefore the area is known as a ‘Zone Blanche’ (Black Spot). The town is under the control of the Steiner family – they own everything from the sawmill to the quarry, the only bar / hotel in town, and the son is the mayor. Most people that live in Villefranche were born there – it’s a very tight community with very close connections to the forest, and many dark secrets. Villefranche also happens to have a murder rate six times the national average. The local prosecutor, Franck Siriani, arrives in Villefranche to determine why the murder rate is so high, and is continuing to grow. The tiny police force, consisting of four gendarmes led by Major Laurene Weiss, seem indifferent to the strange goings-on and take them in stride. Murders take place, people are kidnapped, threatened, and blackmailed – almost a daily occurrence in Villefranche. …And the mayor’s daughter, Marion, has been missing for six months. … And Major Weiss, who twenty years ago went missing under similar circumstances, believes she can find her. …And there may be a monster lurking in the deep, dark, forest. ‘Black Spot’ is a procedural mystery / police thriller – there is a different case almost every episode which appears to be solved in the last 10 minutes. But there are also many underlying plots that get increasingly more prevalent and end up being the main story. Season 1 is primarily about the recovery of Marion and the sinister dealings of the Steiner family – and Laurene trying to find out who kidnapped her and why twenty years ago. Season 2 takes a more supernatural turn, with flashbacks to 57 B.C., Laurene getting her memory back, learning what lurks in the forest, … and will something happen on ‘Samonios’, the Celtic ‘Day of the Dead’. ‘Black Spot’ is dark and gloomy, beautifully filmed, and extremely well-acted – lots of black humour – and definitely binge-worthy. The end of each season leaves you hanging in suspense – hopefully there will be a Season 3 in late 2021 that will tie up all the loose ends.
Call My Agent
Season 1 (2015) – 6 43-minute episodes
Season 2 (2017) – 6 43-minute episodes
Season 3 (2018) – 6 43-minute episodes
Season 4 (2020) – 6 43-minute episodes
4 out of 5 paws
‘Call My Agent’ is a dramedy series that takes you behind the world of the French film industry – often amusing, sometimes heart breaking. Andrea, Mathias, Gabriel, and Arlette are the talent agents in ASK (Agence Samuel Kerr) – Naomie, Herve, and Camille are the assistants that support them. Their job? Support and represent their clients (actors, musicians, writers) in the film industry by any means possible – lie, cheat, steal, and coercion – to get them the best deals and of course, the ten percent commission that the agency makes on their behalf. The series starts with the death of the founder and owner of the agency – Samuel Kerr. What’s going to happen to the agency? Will they keep their clients? Will they be forced to close? Mix this in with the every day problems of the agents and their assistants themselves and you end up with a series that over four seasons has turned out to be one of the best comedies on Netflix. What makes this series truly outstanding is that in every episode at least one real time actor / actress plays themselves in sometimes less than flattering roles. Cecile France, Nathalie Baye, Isabel Huppert, Jean Reno, Juliette Binoche, and many others show up and add to the delightful story lines.
Deep (En Immersion)
1 Season – 3 50-minute episodes
4 out of 5 paws
Shot in black and white, Deep (En Immersion), is a mini-series about a suspended police investigator dealing with a life-threatening illness trying to stop the spread of a new drug that's all the rage in Paris. It’s a police drama that involves ruthless dealers, human smuggling and the thin line between being a cop and a crook. Michel Serrero is a cop newly diagnosed with a terminal illness and subject to hallucinogenic episodes due to the life saving drugs that he must take. Unaware of his condition, his unhappy teenaged daughter Clara becomes involved with drugs through her circle of friends. This eventually overlaps with his undercover work trying to infiltrate the drug dealers. Although set in present time, Deep has a strong late 50’s and 60’s film noir feel to it, highly reminiscent of Hitchcock and Kubrick thrillers. Although a little confusing at first I liked it a lot (ended up binge watching all 3 episodes in one sitting) – the action is fast paced, the script well written with excellent performances from the actors, and brilliantly shot in black and white.
Family Business
Season 1 (2019) – 6 Episodes of 30 minutes each
Season 2 (2020) – 6 Episodes of 30 minutes each
4 out of 5 Paws
Family Business is a 2019 French web television series which debuted on Netflix in the summer of 2019. The plot revolves around Joseph, a failed entrepreneur, who finds out that cannabis is about to be legalized in France. He takes the help of his family and friends to turn the family butcher shop into the first cannabis coffee shop in the country. The story of a family and their trials and tribulations while they attempt to build a marijuana café cafe aka a ‘potcher’ shop, marking it as the first of its kind venture in Paris. As per his proposal, the new name of the shop would be changed from ‘Hazan Meats’ to ‘Hazan Weeds’. A little disjointed ( pun not intended) but hilarious to watch as Joseph and his family keep running into roadblocks that threaten to stop their mission.
Family Business
Season 3 (2021) – 6 episodes of 30 minutes each
3 out of 5 paws
Season 3 starts right from where Season 2 left off – the Hazan family has been kidnapped by Penelope (wanted by Interpol for drug running and murder) and her son in order to get the secret recipe of “PastaWeed”. The family (Joseph, Gerard, Olivier, Aure, and Ludmila) have been taken by helicopter to a remote monastery (complete with AK-47 toting monks). Catherine, Gerard’s girlfriend, who turns out to be Penelope, is imprisoned with them. The rest of the family and friends (Aida, Jaures, Ali, and Clementine) do everything they can to locate and rescue them. Joseph, as usual, creates more difficulties than solutions while trying to escape. The third (and final) season explore more of the family’s history and (complicated) relationships. While funny at times, the whole season comes off as rather slapstick comedy and very disjointed until the last episode.
La Forêt (The Forest)
1 Season – 6 1-hour episodes
3 out of 5 Paws
Sixteen-year-old Jennifer disappears one night from her village in the Ardennes Forest in north eastern France. Local police, led by Captain Deker and Lieutenant Musso, start an investigation that soon appears to link to other unexplained disappearances of young girls in the past. When two more teenage girls disappear, including Musso’s adopted daughter, everyone assumes that the same perpetrator is back and at it again. The police are aided by a young teacher, Eve, who has secrets of her own – she was discovered living in the forest when she was five years old, unable to speak any language. As each episode unfolds, dark secrets from the intertwined families emerge – Are the girls still alive? Who is or was the kidnapper or killer? Where did Eve come from? Excellent script and acting, although the plot can drag on at times and can require a little stretching of the imagination.
The Chalet
Season 1 (2018) – 6 episodes of approx. 45 minutes each
2 out of 5 paws
‘The Chalet’ opens with a man, Sebastien, being interviewed by a psychiatrist in a prison. He appears to be the only survivor of a group of people reunited for a wedding at a chalet near a remote village in the French alps. Cut back to six months before and we see Manu – who was born in the village - and his girlfriend Adele arriving at the chalet that is being run by Philippe – the groom’s to be father - and his sister, Muriel. Alice – who was also born in the village – has come back for the wedding along with her chef boyfriend, Julien. Through a series of flashbacks to twenty years before we find that the chalet had been rented by Jean-Louis Rodier and his family – his wife Francoise, his 13-year-old son Julien, and his 8-year-old daughter, Amelie. Jean-Louis is a writer suffering from writer’s block – he figures that the mountain air will invigorate him to write a new novel. Alice and Manu become friends with Julien – Sebastien is the town bully. Alternating between 2016 and 1996 we find that the village has many dark secrets - the Rodier family disappeared completely after a few months; the village became abandoned – with the exception of Philippe, Muriel, Etienne – Sebastien’s father, and Etienne’s wife Christiane; the Chalet became completely renovated – although the inhabitants were poor; and there is a lot of friction amongst the wedding party – Sebastien, whom Alice detests, has showed up with his model girlfriend, Maud. The wedding party is met at the local train station and heads up winding roads to the village and the chalet. Half-way across a bridge spanning a ravine a boulder roars down the mountainside and breaks the bridge in half, isolating the wedding party on the chalet side. Strange events happen – people are injured / killed, communications are sabotaged … who – and why is trying to kill all the members of the wedding party? What happened to the Rodier family 20 years before? Why is Sebastien apparently the only survivor? ‘The Chalet’ can be fairly confusing over the first two episodes – there are too many plots / subplots going on, and the flashbacks can make you dizzy – but it degenerates into a far-fetched, poorly scripted plot (by the third episode you can pretty well determine what happened) that you just want to have it finished and wrapped up so you can move on. The one bright spot in the series is the cinematography – it was filmed in Chamonix and other locations in the Alps – but it’s not enough to save the series from being long and drawn out.
The Frozen Dead
Season 1 (2018) – 6 episodes of approx. 45 minutes each
2 out of 5 paws
‘The Frozen Dead’ (‘Glace’ in French – but I guess Netflix thought that ‘Frozen’ had already been taken) – starts off on a promising note. Workers going up the side of a mountain (filmed in the French Pyrenees) in a cable car come face to face with a decapitated horse at the top. A French detective from Toulouse, Martin Servaz, is called in to investigate along with a local police captain, Irene Ziegler. Martin is still haunted by a murder investigation years before – he could have saved the killer’s last victim, but failed. Irene is haunted by the memory of a childhood friend who was raped and committed suicide. A young psychiatrist, Diane Berg, is haunted by the death of her sister, and attempts to interview Hirtmann, a famous serial killer, at the hospital where she has just started work. Hirtmann, who might have raped and killed dozens of young girls, was put away by his former police partner and friend, Martin. While interviewing the horse’s owner, Lombard – a rich obnoxious billionaire, Martin and Irene start uncovering deep, dark secrets from 15 years before. A group of young girls committed suicide – did they, and why? Who was involved, and why are they being killed one at a time now? Was one of the girls Irene’s friends? What connection does Martin have with Diane? Who is doing the killing? .. It can’t be Hirtmann, he’s locked up in prison. But why does Hirtmann appear to be pulling all the strings … and why is he doing this … revenge? ‘The Frozen Dead’ is full of cliches – think ‘Silence of the Lambs’, ‘La Mante’, etc. – the characters are stereotypical, the pace – for the most part – is slow and enough to put you to sleep, and the ending predictable (although there is a possibility of a Season 2 – but why bother). The only saving grace for the series is the amazing cinematography - the views of the mountains and the valleys are breath taking, and the only reason I kept watching to the end.