Happy Friday! And Happy Bastille Day! This week’s “global TV to watch” features 10 TV series from France to celebrate the French national holiday.
If everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day, then we’re all French on Bastille Day, aka le 14 juillet. This national holiday in France is the anniversary of the 1789 storming of the Bastille prison during the French Revolution, which ultimately led to the abolition of the monarchy, and commemorates the Feast of the Federation, which, starting in 1790, celebrates the Revolution and national unity in France. So, for today’s “global TV to watch,” let us celebrate Bastille Day with 10 fan-favorite French TV series.
Alexandra Ehle
This delightful mystery drama stars Julie Depardieu (Killer by the Lake, Captain Marleau) as Alexandra Ehle, the medical examiner at the Bordeaux Forensic Institute. A charming, free-spirited, perky, and quirky woman, she’s brilliant at her work, if a bit unconventional; instead of just closely examining the cadavers on her coroner’s table to determine how they died, and then sharing the information with the police, Alex conducts her own investigations within and beyond the morgue. Pourquoi? Because she needs to know more — what happened to the victims and why — if she is going to restore their dignity and give them justice.
Alex playing detective is much to the chagrin of the actual police, namely her brother, Police Commander Antoine Doisneau (Bernard Yerlès, Murder in the Larzac, Bright-Eyed Revenge), who lets himself get talked into helping her as he conducts inquiries about the crimes. Alex’s young assistant, Théo (Xavier Guelfi, Anaïs in Love, Lanester), isn’t all that keen on playing amateur sleuth, either, but his boss can be very persuasive. Meanwhile, Alex can be a bit of a hot mess in her personal life, while her career, and Antoine’s, too, is in danger from one of his colleagues…
Alexandra Ehle is currently streaming in the US and Canada on MHz Choice and its digital channels, including MHz Choice on Amazon.
Balthazar
Arguably one of the most endearing and exasperating lead characters in a French TV series is the titular one in Balthazar. The brilliant, charming, and full-of-himself Raphaël Balthazar (Tomer Sisley, Vortex, Messiah) is the forensic pathologist and youngest director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Paris, where he talks to the dead people on his autopsy table — and they talk back. Like his murdered wife does with him at home. Years later her death still haunts him (as will other events and people in his life), and he’s been trying to solve this mystery ever since. What helps to keep his mind off this on a day-to-day basis are the murder investigations he works on alongside Chief Inspector Hélène Bach (Hélène de Fougerolles, Murder in Strasbourg, Julien’s Law) and later Captain Camille Costes (Constance Labbé, The Cell, A Deadly Union). Balthazar often puts himself in danger while on the job, but little does he realize that there are threats much closer to home, too…
All five seasons of Balthazar are currently streaming in the US and Canada on Acorn TV and its digital channels, including Acorn TV on Amazon. Seasons 1-4 are streaming for free and without ads on Hoopla (through participating libraries). The complete series is also available for digital purchase on Apple TV and Prime Video.
The Bureau
One of the best spy thrillers ever, The Bureau centers on the lives of undercover agents of le bureau des légendes, the organization within France’s DGSE (the general directorate of external security) that trains and handles operatives for missions under their “legends” — the false identities under which they live for years in order to gather security intelligence. Based on accounts from real-world spies and current events, the taut, nerve-wracking series primarily follows two agents — Guillaume Debailly (Mathieu Kassovitz, Amélie, The Astronaut), code name Malotru and later Pavel Lebedev, and Marina Loiseau (Sara Giraudeau, Criminal: France, Farewell, Mr. Haffmann), code name Phénomène and later Rocambole — as well as actions that senior DGSE members must take when their operatives are in danger. (Malotru goes through some harrowing stuff, but it was watching Phénomène, a young, inexperienced, albeit well-trained, female operative, that got me totally stressed.) Meanwhile, agents go missing, get captured, and become double agents for the CIA and Russia’s FSB, amongst other things…
All five seasons of The Bureau are currently streaming in the US and Canada on Sundance Now and the AMC+ streaming bundle, as well as their digital channels, including Sundance Now on Amazon and AMC+ on Amazon. The first four seasons are streaming for free and without ads on Hoopla (through participating libraries). Only Season 5 is available for digital purchase on Prime Video.
Call My Agent!
The 2021 International Emmy® Award winner for Best Comedy, Call My Agent! is a hilarious comedy-drama series that follows the people who work at the ASK talent agency in Paris. It’s a rip-roaring behind-the-scenes look at the maneuvering, politicking, bad-mouthing, and pleading, not to mention lying, that the agents — including agency principals Andréa (Camille Cottin, Allied), Mathias (Thibault de Montalembert, The Tunnel), Gabriel (Grégory Montel, Boomerang), and Arlette (Liliane Rovère, Buffet Froid) — do to secure assignments for their celeb clients and keep them signed with ASK, as well as to poach new clients. Others on staff, like Hervé (Nicolas Maury, C’est la vie), Gabriel’s assistant and later a junior agent, can be just as ruthless as their bosses. Needless to say, so can their competitors…
Celebrity guest stars who play fictionalized versions of themselves in the series include Isabelle Adjani (Camille Claudel), Juliette Binoche (The English Patient), Jean Dujardin (The Artist), Audrey Fleurot (Spiral), Charlotte Gainsbourg (Melancholia), Isabelle Huppert (Elle), Jean Reno (The Professional), Sigourney Weaver (Alien), and many more.
All four seasons of Call My Agent! are currently streaming on Netflix in the US, UK, and most others of Netflix’s territories.
Candice Renoir
Another delightful series is crime dramedy Candice Renoir, which stars Cécile Bois (Gloria, Murder in Sarlat) as the titular detective and mother of four, whose return to France as the Police Commander of the Urban Security Brigade in Sète isn’t as smooth as she’d like. First, she’s out of practice; she hasn’t worked in a decade, so her crime solving skills are rusty. Worse, her new boss resents her and her team and professional colleagues doubt her; Candice got the job meant for someone else, and the whole office thinks she’s too soft for detective work. So Candice has to prove herself time and again that she can do the job, and she does with each case that she solves, using her own blend of detective skills and feminine wiles. Things get better at work over time; her personal and family life, not so much. When these worlds collide and her mother is involved, Candice is uncharacteristically not sitting pretty, and things do get pretty bad for her. But folks shouldn’t count her out, cuz Candice is way stronger than she’s given credit for, and she will handle whatever comes her way with style and grace. Well, mostly…
The first six seasons of Candice Renoir are currently streaming in the US and Canada on Acorn TV and its digital channels, including Acorn TV on Amazon.
A French Village
An outstanding (and devastating) series from start to finish, A French Village chronicles the German occupation of the (fictional) village of Villeneuve from the perspective of its citizens. Life changed forever for these people starting in June 1940, when the German army arrived. And then stayed for four years. No one in Villenueve is left untouched by the Occupation — not Dr. Larcher (Robin Renucci, Chefs) or his wife, Hortense (Audrey Fleurot, Spiral); not sawmill owner Raymond (Thierry Godard, Spiral) or his wife, Jeannine (Emmanuelle Bach, Spin), or his lover, Marie (Nade Dieu, The Chalet); not the teacher, Lucienne (Marie Kremer, The Paris Murders), or Police Commissioner Marchetti (Nicolas Gob, The Art of Crime). All they can do is try to survive. Whether that looks like joining the Resistance, collaborating with the Germans, or something else, adapting to their new normal is a must. But even this is no guarantee of living another day, particularly for the Jewish villagers. And the fates of those who make it to see the Allies’ liberation of France and to reunite with each other decades later aren’t necessarily what they would have wished for themselves (or others)…
All seven seasons of A French Village are currently streaming in the US and Canada on MHz Choice and its digital channels, including MHz Choice on Amazon, as well as on Hoopla (through participating libraries). Select seasons are streaming for free in the US, and all are available for digital purchase, on the show’s Prime Video page. Season 1 is streaming for free with ads on The Roku Channel.
The Law of…
The first of two legal dramas on today’s list is The Law of…, an anthology series that started off as the one-off miniseries The Law of Barbara, starring César Awards winner Josiane Balasko (French Twist) as Barbara Malo, a tough cookie of a defense attorney who takes on cases where much points to the defendants being guilty. When Balasko declined returning for a second season, César Awards nominee Gérard Jugnot (The Chorus) was brought in for the newly-titled The Law of Alexandre, in which he plays Alexandre Laurent, the half of a brilliant legal team who had never been the lead attorney in court — until he had to be, due to the murder of his business partner and best friend.
The second miniseries was even more successful than the first, so The Law of… continued, but with leading French (and Spanish) acting talent (all César Awards winners or nominees except one) starring as the titular attorney in single feature-length episodes — all of which are terrific. The attorney-for-hire stories are deeper and more complex, owing to the backstory of the lead character playing into the storyline, such as Simon Varlet (Daniel Prévost, The Dinner Game) being forced to serve as a public defender as punishment for an insult; a personal and professional matter prompting legendary lawyer Gloria Mendoza (Victoria Abril, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!) to come out of retirement and go back into the courtroom; and Damien Turenne (Richard Berry, Lanester) being asked to defend someone he believes is guilty of killing someone close to him; amongst others.
All 14 episodes of The Law of… that have been produced to date are currently streaming in the US and Canada on MHz Choice and its digital channels, including MHz Choice on Amazon.
Munch
On the lighter side of the justice scales is Munch, a legal drama starring Isabelle Nanty (Amélie, Big Bug) as Gabrielle “Munch” Munchovski, a criminal attorney who leads her firm with longtime friend and gay business partner, Hubert Bellanger (Lucien Jean-Baptiste, He Even Has Your Eyes). He’s more by-the-book than she is, which isn’t difficult, as Munch has a habit of doing things she shouldn’t to get what she needs to defend her clients successfully — like illegal things that could get her disbarred and thrown in jail. Undeterred by the rules, unafraid of the consequences, and unimpressed by the threats from a vengeful judge, Munch continues to represent individuals in what appear to be open-and-shut cases, with information- and evidence-gathering help from Gaspard (Aurélien Wiik, Luther), a former cop-turned-private investigator; new hire Aurélien (Tom Villa, Nina), the son of the firm’s top client; and staff assistant Clarisse (Paloma Coquant, Astrid), one of Munch’s former clients.
The first two seasons of Munch are currently streaming in the US and Canada on the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel and the Walter Presents digital channels.
The Returned
The first season of The Returned is one of my all-time favorite TV shows. (Season 2 was okay, but nowhere near as good as Season 1.) It’s a supernatural thriller that follows the residents of a small mountain town after deceased members from their lives return to the land of the living. These undead are not your typical decaying, flesh-eating zombies; rather, they look exactly as they did when they were last alive (and seem to be always hungry for people food, not people as food). And they don’t realize that they had died, so they act like nothing utterly bizarre has happened. Meanwhile, their loved ones are shocked, confused, and to a certain degree horrified by the concurrently welcome-and-unwelcome new developments in their lives. If the dead returning wasn’t strange enough, other weird things start happening — like a cop, her lover, and the creepy little boy driving for hours, only to realize they’ve been going around and around in a huge circle, unable to leave the town. Then there’s the spate of recent murders that brings back memories of a serial killer. Before all is said and done, both the living and the undead will find themselves in danger…
Both seasons of The Returned are currently streaming in the US and Canada on Topic and its digital channels, including Topic on Amazon. Season 1 is streaming for free and without ads on Hoopla (through participating libraries), and available for digital purchase on Apple TV and Prime Video. Season 2 is streaming on Sundance Now and the AMC+ streaming bundle, as well as their digital channels, including Sundance Now on Amazon and AMC+ on Amazon. Seasons 1 and 2 are currently streaming for free with ads on Tubi.
Spiral
Spiral is one of the best crime dramas ever. A bit like the shows in the “Law & Order” franchise but way darker and grittier and with season(s)-long storylines rather than a crime-of-the-week format, it follows members of the law enforcement and courts parts of the criminal justice system: three cops in a criminal brigade of the Paris Police, a prosecutor, a judge, and a defense attorney. Their work overlaps when Police Captain Laure Berthaud (Caroline Proust, Notre-Dame) and her nicknamed lieutenants, Gilou (Thierry Godard, A French Village) and Tintin (Fred Bianconi, Leo Mattei – Special Unit), investigate a case that is being overseen by Deputy Prosecutor Pierre Clément (Grégory Fitoussi, Peaky Blinders) and by extension Judge Roban (Philippe Duclos, The Art of Crime), and where criminal defense lawyer Joséphine Karlsson (Audrey Fleurot, A French Village) is representing the accused. But their worlds intersect in other ways, as well, sometimes on a personal, and even intimate, level.
Hailed for its realistic portrayals, Spiral is a series where you lose yourself in the story and forget the people on screen are actors. Its characters are everyday human beings, with personality assets and flaws we can all relate to or recognize, whether it’s the determination to succeed or the lust for money. And the crimes are ones that happen every day — narcotics dealing, people trafficking, corruption, and more — whether they get reported or not.
All eight seasons of Spiral are currently streaming in the US and Canada on MHz Choice and its digital channels, including MHz Choice on Amazon, and available for digital purchase on Prime Video. The first six seasons are streaming for free and without ads on Hoopla (through participating libraries).
Bonuses
In addition to the above ten series, check out Astrid, Family Business, Medellin, Nicolas Le Floch, and Overdose, which I wrote about in the April 14, April 21, May 19, and June 23 “global TV to watch” articles.
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