Police Paris 1900

Most reviewers will do their work after the first episode and might comment whether they will stay with it.

This review comes after the concluding episode last Saturday.

This French series about a decapitation of a woman set in post-Dreyfus Paris appears to be sufficiently successful that a second is currently being filmed.

This is often the great hope of the cast. I read James Gandolfini and “wife’ Carmela played by Edie Falco  in the Sopranos were unknown and both amazed and delighted when that ran to a second series.

It, of course, became landmark television.

This was well-acted with a series of characters mercifully not shackled by BBC diversity.

The women, especially the wife (Valerie Dashwood) of Prefet Lepine (Marc Baube)  were manipulative, as was the central character Meg Stahlein, the courtesan wife of a painter, played by Evelyne Bouchu.

One only has to look at some of the brothel pictures of Henri Toulouse Lautrec, or read Nana by Emile Zola, to understand that the courtesan was an established personnage in France at the time.

It was interesting to discover the methods of detection – e.g. finger prints – were possible but the post mortem of the decapitated woman Josephine Berger was the main resource.

There is corruption within the force – a staple for all police dramas.

Eight episodes were possibly too many as you need a twist in the narrative at the end of each to sustain it.

The vile anti-semitism that was rife during the Dreyfus trial was well-created with precise attention to clothes and location.