Has anyone seen this? I'd be interested to know what you think. I've watched the first three episodes so far and feeling rather bemused. It seems full of non-sequiturs and dead-end sub plots, and most of the scenes seem so poorly lit I can hardly make out what's going on. Yet everyone says Spiral is brilliant!

Emma, the first series was very good indeed. But then it all started to go a bit tits up, I think. There's one fascinating character in it, the red headed solicitor, but I don't particularly like the police officers in it - it's a bit too Sweeny for me, I'm afraid. I did stick with it though just because it's French.

I loved series two. Saw it before series one. Just started watching the reruns. But I have a girly pash on Laure and a weird silver fox crush on le juge, and my husband has a very ungirly crush on Laure, so we're both happy.

I watch this mainly for the French. I do enjoy the stories though, very gritty. I wasn't as impressed with the last series as series 1 and 2. I do like the judge too, and think the solicitor man is rather lush.

I haven't been keeping up with when series 4 is out though.

Fiona

Emma

I agree again. I don't know the chronology but the first series struck me as being an attempt to cash in with a Killing clone. But in Spiral, unlike that brilliant piece, none of the characters add up: they are made to behave as the plot demands with no consistency of feeling or conviction. The underlying morality of Spiral seems to me legally and personally hateful and politically, judicially deeply cynical. If this in any way accurately reflects the French legal system - thank God I don't live there.

It does have a kind of amoral dark edginess which I guess will have to suffice until another Danish/Swedish gem turns up on Saturday night.

Till then I'll just have to live off the guilty pleasure of Smash on Sky Atlantic (Sat) - phoney world but played with such authority and conviction - when the series is over I suspect they'll actually put Marilyn on Broadway. I'd go.

z

Zettel, thank god it's not just me! Dramatically, so much of Spiral just doesn't add up or seems oddly convoluted. For instance you're left on the cliffhanger at the end of episode 2 when the prosecutor goes back to get the diary for his friend and is caught by the judge in his office, yet at the beginning of the next episode they are talking together like nothing happened. WTF??? And the subplots seem dire, they hardly get off the ground before someone confesses or whatever.

I was just thinking there's something very off about French drama or the French judicial system, or maybe both, so we're of one mind there.

I agree, I've probably been ruined for this by the Danish stuff. Spiral just seems unbearably clumsy by comparison. That said, I welcome any opportunity to improve my French. Am trying to work up the courage to turn the subtitles off on the DVD, but then I can barely understand what's going on with them on.

I think Spiral was out quite a while before the Killing.

Yeah, I'm late to it, Jem. Only just rented the DVD from Lovefilm.

You're right Jem:

Spiral 1 Ep 1 - Dec 2005

Killing 1 Ep 1 - Jan 2007.

Still looks like a rip-off though.

I could handle the lack of morality among the cops if it was consistent but we're somehow invited to see them as badly treated every now and then. Becasue the characters are blown this way and that because of the demands of the plot there IS no one to identify with even as villain. It's a shame because the the playing actually pretty good especially Caroline Proust.

Z

The female character of the solicitor is fascinating though!

Is it just me who finds Roban the judge a bit weird? There's something so creepily effeminate about him. He reminds me of a lizard or something.

There's something so creepily effeminate about him. He reminds me of a lizard or something.

Yes! The way he moves and talks is very strange indeed.

I think I agree with the inconsistency of the characters. It's one of the reasons I didn't really like the last series - Laure was made to be on edge and stressed and convinced she knew who the killer was. She ended up being right, but it was from out of nowhere. There were no hints at the beginning and no reason why she was more stressed than normal about the whole thing.

yes, agreed - about the lizard and Laure.

This is picking up. Episode 3 and 4 were pretty tense and aziz is certainly an only too credible villain.

More importantly it's as if having manipulated characters like Laure and Kaarlson(?) in the service of plot that they've they've begun to come alive a characters and seem to be driving the writing rather than the other way round. we'll see, but it look promising.

K