Marseille, Netflix’s latest series, is making waves: Some love it, some not so much. I am in the not-so-much camp. I found the series to be shallow, and I lost interest by the third episode. It is mediocre enough to skip, if you ask me.
Instead, if you are looking to spend your time watching whodunit shows, especially made with a decidedly non-American sensibility, I can recommend three series that are stunning, haunting and captivating.
- Hinterland (Seasons 1 and 2) is quite an amazing show. It is the English-language version of the Celtic noir police detective drama series Y Gwyll. (Hinterland, by the way is the stretch of the western Wales coastline.) It’s one of my favorites. If you are a Netflix subscriber, you won’t have any trouble seeing both seasons of this BBC series. Season 1 is also available on Amazon, Google Play, Steam and the iTunes Store.
- The Night Manager is based on a book by John le Carré, and it stars Hugh Laurie as the bad guy. It is about the night manager of an Egyptian hotel who gets involved in the intelligence business and has to infiltrate an international arms network. It is currently playing on AMC. I have seen three episodes and, boy, it is a firecracker of a show. You can download it on Amazon and iTunes as well. (The Economist has a great story about John le Carré and why he is still relevant even today.)
- The Last Panthers is a pan-European but mostly French production based in Marseilles, and it spans the entire continent and is tied to the Bosnian-Serbian conflict of the 1990s. It is currently airing on Sundance TV. I couldn’t stop watching and essentially chose to not sleep and watch the four episodes available on Amazon and iTunes. I can’t wait for the next two shows to land. Money well spent.