Paris Police 1900 (S1, E1)
Very few television shows have great first episodes. That’s not surprising if one thinks about it. Characters are not yet established, and the best shows often have multiple storylines. Shows that hit the ground running (I’m thinking Game of Thrones or Masters of Sex) often have easily recognizable main stories or pre-existing source material that means audiences are already familiar with the characters.
In addition, writers and show runners may not know which actors will thrive in a role nor which characters an audience will connect with. Judging by its pilot, David Caruso, not Dennis Franz, was meant to be the heart and soul of NYPD Blue. Denny Crane was supposed to be a one-off character for just a few episodes of Boston Legal. Rare is the show that has its identity established before its beginnings reach the airwaves. Those episodes are often charged with introducing all the characters and beginning multiple storylines, so they also feel a bit packed.
It’s not surprising then that of the eight episodes in Season One of Paris Police 1900, the first has the lowest viewer scoring in IMDB. It’s not bad, but it’s stuffed. We get the death of the French Prime Minister (in….umm….a compromised position), the introduction of a young wife abandoned by her elderly husband (who nevertheless wants to sue her for divorce for prostituting herself to stay alive.) A Jewish newsstand owner and his son are beaten by anti-Semitic thugs (one of whom is clearly meant to be a recurring villain). The high-end prostitute who was with the Prime Minister offers to become a police informant and is threatened at knife-point by a home invader. A seasoned police inspector is urged to come out of retirement but worries about his wife who may have some unspecified ailment or may simply be oppressed by the stifling care of a patriarchal society.
It looks as though the center of Season One will be the idealistic Antoine Jouin, a younger member of the police, disgusted by the laziness, corruption, and apathy of his senior colleagues. When the mutilated corpse of a woman is found floating in a case in the river, he disregards his partner’s admonition to never volunteer for work and asks to be put on a task force. Antoine is perhaps driven by guilt, since he presumes the victim may be a woman he interviewed earlier who was beaten by her husband. Antoine is clearly drawn to her, but not enough to intervene. He presumes hers is the body in case, but is it?
As the plot summary indicates, Paris Police 1900 is not for the faint of heart. In my experience European television is often….grittier…more explicit than American network television. We see a prolonged, simulated sex scene and several scenes of brutal violence (as well as its aftereffects). You’ve been trigger warned.
The violence is also graphic and the anti-Semitism pronounced. There is a prolonged scene in which an agitprop pig in a military uniform has its throat sliced while the audience gleefully roars and screams “Kill the Jews!” Given that this is Paris 1900 and note Belin 1930, here’s hoping that a major theme will be what stemmed the tide of fascism and genocidal bigotry in one location but allowed it to take root in another. If the show can answer that question, its graphic violence can be thematically excused. If this just turns out to be expressionistic exaggeration for shock effect, some of the grosser scenes may wear out the shows welcome more quickly.
The show also seems to be setting up for an Upstairs, Downstairs focus, with one storyline on street crime and another looking at the political maneuvering of government forces. The basically well-intentioned cop trying to do some good while embedded in a hopelessly corrupt system is a genre staple. Such shows generally work if the lead character is sympathetic and likable, since even those outside of law-enforcement can empathize with the difficulties of getting work done in rotten bureaucratic or corrupt systems. The government angle seems a bit less promising, and I would like to see more differentiation in the female characters, even if one ostensible point is that women are treated horribly regardless of social class.
It’s a rocky start, but it does enough well to get me to come back for Episode Two, which is the acid test of any pilot. Check back next week for another episode update from Edward Brown….
Paris Police 1900 is currently streaming at MHz Choice
