| From: LoneClone | 5/7/2024 2:50:54 PM | | | | | | The Traveller (Le Voyageur)
Watching this French series was a very strange experience for me. Mostly it was not the content of the series that bemused me, so let me explain.
The first oddness was when the star of the series, Eric Contana, showed up on screen not wearing shorts. I had seen Cantona on screen many times before, but that was back in the early 1990s when he was one of the best football (soccer) players in the world, leading France and Manchester United to many titles. His football career fizzled out after he went into the stands and drop-kicked a fan – an even stranger story which ended up with the ‘fan’ serving jail time – but apparently after retiring from footy he decided to become an actor.
All that figured out, I settle in to enjoy the series. Contana plays a brilliant detective who got fed up with being told by his superiors to drop cases he thought he could solve, hence managed to get himself into a position where he would drop in to help local police forces with difficult to solve crimes. And Contana’s character really did drop out, selling everything including his house and driving to his assignments in a van he lived in while hunting, fishing, and doing odd jobs to survive. (I never managed to figure out if he was still getting paid as a policeman, but I don’t think so.) Hence the title of the series – he was living as a Traveller (or what we used to call a gypsy or Romany).
The first season of four 90-minute episodes was enjoyable as Contana’s character, well, travelled to gorgeous locations in the French countryside and interacted with interesting locals while solving interesting crimes. Imagine my surprise when the second season started and it was quickly mentioned, kind of offhand, that Contana’s character had been killed. Instead we get a new central figure, and this is where it really gets weird. He acquires Contana’s character’s van and even his dog and basically taken over as a mobile Traveller/cop. Unfortunately, without Contana the series didn’t really work very well. I managed to watch one more episode after that but, revealingly, no one has bothered making English subs for the remaining few episodes.
Then I did some research. Apparently Contana, who has Romany ancestry, was actually living the Traveller lifestyle during the filming of the first season, and then quit the show before the second season because it was interfering with that lifestyle. He still does the occasional movie, but I hope he’s happier with his life these days.
I would say the first season is definitely worth checking out, and maybe the first episode of the second season for the weirdness, but that’s it.
imdb.com |
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| From: Jhana | 5/8/2024 2:26:02 PM | | | | | | | We tried to watch season 3 of "Guilt" on PBS after enjoying the first two seasons, but all I saw in part of the first episode was weird, miserable people all likely to continue a weird, miserable existence. Pass. |
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| From: Jhana | 5/11/2024 10:03:11 AM | | | | | | If you like "Miss Fisher" but not the camp, try "Mystery of a Hansom Cab" for an evening in Victorian Melbourne with a decent mystery plot. Movie available on APV.
On the list to try:
Ipcress File (new Acorn series not the old movie)
Bodkin (Netflix coming up)
After the Flood (Britbox coming up)
Harry Wild (Acorn season 3 coming up)
Bridgerton (Netflix coming up) |
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| To: Jhana who wrote (51295) | 5/13/2024 3:39:51 PM | | From: epicure | | | | We loved Bodkin! LOVED it (the Obama's production company helped finance it!) We all thought the setting, story and acting were superb. It's just excellent entertainment- and Ireland is always a star for a setting.
Harry Wild is a favorite of ours. We have enjoyed every season.
Bridgerton is weird and anachronistic and I don't enjoy it as much.
I can also recommend the Portable Door and Dead Boy Detectives. |
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| From: LoneClone | 5/17/2024 2:37:58 PM | | | | | | I watched the latest season of Vera, only three episodes, one good, one very good, and one routine. I continue to appreciate how firmly the show is rooted in its physical setting Mind you, there was one brief shot at the ned of one of the episodes that was priceless. I won't specify.
I also watched the latest Macdonald and Doods, another show for which I appreciate how it uses its setting. Again, there are only three episodes, but they actually got a bit experimental this time around in ways that I enjoyed.
One of the things to appreciate about both these series is the quality of the actors they bring in to guest star in each episode.
LC |
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| From: Sultan | 5/19/2024 8:47:00 PM | | | | | | Picked up "The Land of Lost Things "
Let's see how good it is. I have read "The Book of Lost Things" which was excellent. |
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| To: LoneClone who wrote (51297) | 5/19/2024 10:46:12 PM | | From: epicure | | | | | We finally finished Ted Lasso and moved on to Gentleman Jack, Dead Boy Detective, Evil, A Man in Full, and a few other series I can't remember :-) Also, we rewatched all the Jurassic Park movies as well as The Zero Effect. |
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| To: epicure who wrote (51299) | 5/20/2024 9:05:06 AM | | From: Jhana | | | | | We liked Gentleman Jack to start but gave up later when the story seemed to get very repetitive. Watching Suranne Jones now in "MaryLand" with part 3 queued up for tonight. |
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