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Reviews
J'ai menti (2021)
Spiral of lies. First class TV from France.
Walter presents on 4 is showing some great TV on catch up and this is one of the best. Spiral of Lies is a six-part crime drama that's addictive from the very start. The opening sequence has more packed into a few minutes than some shows do in an entire episode. Somehow Spiral of Lies manages to keep that pace up for six full episodes but it seems perfectly timed and never drawn out like so many other shows. The cast are superb and deliver totally convincing performances. Interestingly there are no goodies or perfect people in this and the characters are all flawed which adds to the appeal. There's never a dull moment. Unusually for me I even noticed how I liked the editing.
The French made this story very believable with only a few 'aye right' moments which were not directly related to the story so not worthy of mention. The ending, which can so often be a let down in shows like this, delivers the goods and doesn't descend into silliness as so often happens with these shows. I haven't ruled out watching it again.
The quality of this French TV show is exceptional and thanks to Walter Presents and Channel 4 we can all watch it. We binged watched it in a few evenings. We find ourselves making greater use of this service and watching non-English speaking shows and we are learning that so many of them are far far better than what we are seeing from our own channels. Foreign language TV is steadily becoming our first choice.
Love Rat (2024)
Pile of steaming
Channel 5 are throwing money at original drama productions and I suppose that's to be encouraged but once you've watched this you might reconsider.
Despite the premise of Love Rat being 'Men bad women daft' we gave it a go on my5 (ten years licence free this year thank you) with the intention of binge watching the series. It became clear early on that we wouldn't be doing that. The pacing was unrealistically fast C5 got four episodes out of this (more than enough) but Netflix would have got ten. The dialogue was awful and so unnatural its only purpose was to justify the next bit. None of the cast were good enough to save this. Amateur is the best way to describe it.
Love Rate quickly became a comedy for us and that continued part way into the second episode. We'd worked out the ending before Emma left for Cyprus while unpacking her kitchen boxes in the dark. The ridiculousness beat the humour and we decided to end it so we missed out on e3 and went for e4, the big finale. The suspense. We were right not to expect much. It was a chore to watch and every time we thought it couldn't get any worse, it did.
Despite its unintentional qualities Love Rat was about the worst show I remember watching. Channel 5 is rightly at the bottom of the pile in terms of quality TV but the overall quality of UK TV is on the slide and we find ourselves watching foreign language shows on Walter Presents on catch up on 4. The French, Germans and Italians are all producing TV that is far better.
Die Toten von Marnow (2021)
Top notch TV from Germany
It doesn't get any better than this. The script is superb and completely unpredictable and there was never a point where I felt like it was being 'filled' as I so often do with Netflix so the eight episode run seemed perfect. The dialogue is excellent and about the most natural I've heard. There's even a good few moments of humour in there and thanks to this show I've learned a few German swear words. The actors are superb, all of them, there was never a moment when I didn't believe any of them they were all absolutely convincing. Despite the leads being seriously flawed people and imperfect police officers they are very real and hugely likeable. The personal lives part is also perfectly balanced and almost always relevant to the story so it doesn't turn into a chore watching them at home with their significant others. I've never watched German TV before but I liked listening to the language. Even my wife who refuses to watch foreign TV with subtitles was hooked and we binged watched the show on C4 in two days.
If I had a gripe then I'd say that while it's a murder show and the very nature of murder is brutal I dislike graphic violence and some of the murders could be done without so much gore 'vielen dank' and while I'm at it that gore was always repeated during the 'last time' refresher at the start of each episode, poor Mr Dreyer. I also dislike 'next time' trailers at the end of each episode believing they spoil the experience so I had to grab the remote to stop them. They we unnecessary as I was already hooked and didn't need encouraged to watch the next episode. We'd watched entire episodes without realising or checking the running time once. All German TV can't be this good but based on this I'll be giving it another go. When something is this good it should be left alone for everyone to enjoy in its original form so no English speaking remakes please.
Crime (2021)
Garbage
Irvine Welsh, Dougray Scott and Ken Stott a surefire hit yes? Wrong. This is one of the worst pieces of TV I have ever watched. Its even worse then Six Four also on ITVX and STV player. It's amateur night on Crime. The whole effort is strained and contrived. Jamie Sives who I've never seen before is absolutely awful as DS Gillman. The racism from his character is very un-Scottish and is embarrassingly bad. Scots don't talk like that. We were so looking forward to watching Crime but neither my wife nor I could stand it so it failed our 30 minute test. If id doesn't have us in that time it goes off. This went off without hesitation. Unbelievably, there's a second series. No thanks.
The Watcher (2022)
Highly addictive, gripping understated thriller.
The Watcher, ironically, is what I became after the first episode, I couldn't switch it off. It's very gripping and every scene piles on more intrigue than the one before. That changed briefly in the second episode when I feared for the direction of the story but that didn't develop and got back on track otherwise I'd have given up on it.
The cast did a great job and are all believable in their roles. Karen was the exception. Her image is odd and I found that distracting to point I often wasn't listening to what she was saying, she's built like Arnie but looks like she's had more faces than the VW Golf and her foul mouth didn't help either.
The usual concerns about Netflix productions, length and pacing, were put to bed. It could have been a bit shorter but it never felt too long. There were a couple of times when the closing credits started and I felt like I'd just pressed play. I binge watched the lot.
If you're after a shoot-out, slashing, violence, massacre or a blood bath then look elsewhere, this is smarter than that.
+ MInimal violence, blood guts gore or guns. Gripping throughout. Great cast and acting.
- Potential silliness in episode 2, Karen and her unnatural use of the f word. How long does it take American workmen to change kitchen worktops?