Engrenages (Spiral) Season 6

[Sebastian Cobb]

After googling fairly regularly since it started airing in France to see if an air date has been announced on BBC4, it seems that this starts again next weekend, or maybe the 30th, not really sure.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0072wk9

Also going to the BBC 4 page I notice that Audrey Fleurot is in another French drama called Witnesses.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09h3nwt/witnesses-a-frozen-death-episode-1

[BlodwynPig]

A long time coming, merci.

[mothman]

Formidable! Je vais au sud-ouest pour le semaine, mais j'ai le, 'ow you say, series link? Saison linque?

[BlodwynPig]

Les source usual?

[studpuppet]

Also going to the BBC 4 page I notice that Audrey Fleurot is in another French drama called Witnesses.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09h3nwt/witnesses-a-frozen-death-episode-1

Witnesses: A Frozen Death (actually the second series) is definitely worth watching - finishes this weekend in the Scando-Noir slot. Before it started, I saw it described as a French-style Broadchurch, but it isn't. At all. Now looking for the first series to see if that was a bit more 'Midsommer' than this one!

[im barry bethel]

Not so keen on Witnesses, it's a touch predictable and tries a bit to hard to be twisty The first series was the bodies dug up and posed in showhouses one (and equally as see through). If anything I'd say they both seem a poor relation to The Bridge.

[BlodwynPig]

Watched Ep1 of Series 1 of Witnesses - yes, BBC four-exhaustion, looking for a new style to freshen things up (although I did like wolf in the opening credits). Perhaps, a real malevolency is needed. The tone of everything is bleak rather than evil, remoteness, detachment, austerity. Perhaps turn the dial 90 degrees and introduce some immediacy, expansiveness and true, stark evil.

[mothman]

Wait - wasn't the bodies-posed-in-showhouses one a one-off French show that was on Channel 4 last year?

[studpuppet]

Wait - wasn't the bodies-posed-in-showhouses one a one-off French show that was on Channel 4 last year?

Was possibly originally a one-off that came back for a second series?

[im barry bethel]

Definitely an 8 or 10 parter, think it might have been on Sky cause we could only watch it at my nurses. Same windy beach opening credits with the container doors, same chubby sidekick, same windy bleak drone shots of the sea it must have predated the current frozen bodies one because Sandra was still with the husband but found out he was having an affair.

[mothman]

Looks like it is a sequel (or a prequel?) but IMDb doesn't seem to know about it. And it's been on BBC4 for weeks? Fuck. Do they EVER promote these things? I do see some trailers for their foreign shows but it's never the ones I want to see (come back).

Also, interesting how C4 made a big fanfare about showing Witnesses at prime time, something they never do with dubbed shows. And now they don't bother to show the follow-up. Says it all. Presumably wanted something with more gays or ethnics in for their 10pm slot, or didn't have any Naked First Dates or 999 What's Your 24 Hours Born Every Amazing Space Relocation? available.

[Sebastian Cobb]

i imagine channel 4 have changed tack after they advertised d83 and it became the most watched subtitled series in the uk ever.

[Repeater]

Just started Witness on iPlayer. That's season 2 is it? The one with the dead cunts on the bus? Seemed alright.

[mothman]

I'd like to watch it, but don't know if all the eps are on iPlayer or for how long. I'll probably have to torrent it.

No Spiral on BBC4 this Saturday (today). I think it's some kind of placeholder page and it'll be first Saturday in January.

[studpuppet]

I'd like to watch it, but don't know if all the eps are on iPlayer or for how long. I'll probably have to torrent it.

No Spiral on BBC4 this Saturday (today). I think it's some kind of placeholder page and it'll be first Saturday in January.

Nope - it starts on the 30th: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09kl71v

[Sebastian Cobb]

Tonight, 9pm. Double bill by the looks of it.

[rjd2]

I loved the first few seasons, but this needs to wrap up very soon. Is there any better recent French dramas out and about?

[BlodwynPig]

Just finishing off season 2 of witnesses - I have to say it was a curveball after the very cliched first. This one was brutal and sexy

[lebowskibukowski]

Strongest series for a while that, i think. Fucking marvellous.

[mothman]

At least the sheer number of cliffhangers there suggest they intend to make another series. Just a shame we'll have to wait two years to see it. I wonder if Tintin (Fred Bianconi) is being written out? I hope not. I could see him going to work for Herville in Cléry. There's a vacancy after all. Contrast get the work of a central team like CID against that of a local nick (un nique locale?) worked really well. Nicholas Briancon (Herville) is about the only cast member I've seen in anything else, so good to see him given more to do.

I also liked that the rest of the team got fleshed out, and all have names now, not just someone - usually JePe! - summoned to move prisoners etc.

[im barry bethel]

I don't know what it is about the French dramas but they all seem so bloody grey and flat, not just the plots but the way they're filmed. Always feels like I need to dust the tv screen.

[BlodwynPig]

Corking series, slightly underwhelming finish in Spiral terms, at least. But Season 7 is in production and I hope Josephine is screwed (but not literally) by Edelman, although I like her and hate him...it seemed to be the twist that was coming but ran out of time. I guess she'll end up once more a unknowing puppet to a seedy male lawyer, again.

[steveh]

This continues to be really well-written and produced - probably my favourite of the BBC 4 Saturday night slot. Still feel there's a gap though having lost Gregory Fitoussi as a counterpoint to Audrey Fleurot on the lawyer side, which the newer minor characters don't entirely make up for.

After seven series what does come across though is the criminals and other unsympathetic characters being consistently 'other' - black, Roma, Jewish, gay - to the point that it can feel like an editorial decision rather than reflecting reality or even an unconscious bias.

[lebowskibukowski]

This continues to be really well-written and produced - probably my favourite of the BBC 4 Saturday night slot. Still feel there's a gap though having lost Gregory Fitoussi as a counterpoint to Audrey Fleurot on the lawyer side, which the newer minor characters don't entirely make up for.

After seven series what does come across though is the criminals and other unsympathetic characters being consistently 'other' - black, Roma, Jewish, gay - to the point that it can feel like an editorial decision rather than reflecting reality or even an unconscious bias.

Didn't Gregory Fitoussi (aka as 'Sexy Pierre' by my wife) turn up very briefly in the first episode as Josephine walked down a corridor, and they didn't allude to it again afterwards? Or have I had a funny turn?

[BlodwynPig]

Didn't Gregory Fitoussi (aka as 'Sexy Pierre' by my wife) turn up very briefly in the first episode as Josephine walked down a corridor, and they didn't allude to it again afterwards? Or have I had a funny turn?

His ghost? He did die didn't he?

[lebowskibukowski]

His ghost? He did die didn't he?

I thought that they were going to do some sort of 'Josephine losing her mind plot'. Now i'm thinking it is me that has lost mine. I'm fairly convinced he was credited in the opening titles as well....

[mothman]

He got a "guest starring" credit, which really rather spoiled the surprise of his appearance. I think he's meant to represent her guilty conscience, because she'd just come out of a case she'd jujst phoned in, not giving it her full attention.

[lebowskibukowski]

He got a "guest starring" credit, which really rather spoiled the surprise of his appearance. I think he's meant to represent her guilty conscience, because she'd just come out of a case she'd jujst phoned in, not giving it her full attention.

Thank Christ for that. Early onset avoided for another day

[Sebastian Cobb]

I enjoyed it. I'm surprised to see they're filming a 7th series now as it looked like they'd wrapped things up in various different ways for Tintin, Josephine and Roban.

[dallasman]

Watched this over the past two days. It always seems to work out like this; being alerted to the latest series just as it's wrapped up, or about to. Series five is very fuzzy in my memory, so I'm thinking it may have been on the dull side. This one was pretty riveting, though, and it was great getting back with all the characters. As for the cliffhangers, I initially thought there were only ten episodes, because that's how many there were in the naughty bundle I found online. So, for a couple of minutes, I thought they'd resolved absolutely nothing. Found eps 11 & 12, and I guess they tied up a couple of loose ends, but we basically don't know if any of our heroes are in the clear. Gilou, Laure, Josephine and Roban all broke the law, and the cases are all still open afaict. Series seven right now, please!

Some stray observations:

- I miss Sexy Pierre too. I'm as straight as they come, but that, my friends, is a beautiful man.
- Roban has freakishly smooth legs!
- I knew it was Verge, and I knew she would end up doing something like that. Don't know if I want her to face justice.
- not that it was made into that big a deal, but Gilou's whole "he reminds me of me when I first started out" thing felt like it belonged in another show.
- the child sex trafficking storyline coincided with a series of arrests in Bergen this week, where a girl of 16 was about to be sold into prostitution by a group of people that included her grandparents. Can't get any more "ripped from today's headlines" than that.
-....unless you count the slightly less sensational - but somehow more taboo - reality of (what's not actually called) "no-go zones" and the "challenges" brewing therein. The Mayor character was a good window into this issue, but could have been a little more rounded. (Yeah, I know..."Fuck off Milverton")
- pretty gutted at the final scene. She's just not fit for motherhood, is she?