Starting to watch a new series is always a gamble: Often you don’t know in advance if it’s something you’ll like. How many episodes do you have to watch before you can decide to stop or continue? Probably two or three episodes should be enough right? But even then it can get better or worse. Les oubliées, also known as Forgotten Girls, consists of six episodes, so you would expect that three episodes in you’d be hooked. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case for me at that moment.
For 15 years detective Christian Janvier (Jacques Gamblin) has been involved in various cases involving blond girls who’ve gone missing. The bodies have never been found, but after each disappearance their clothes were found accompanied by a statue of the virgin Mary. There is an obvious connection between the cases, but there has never been a breakthrough. It has had a big impact on Janvier. Mentally he is slowly falling apart. He starts to forget he has done specific things and regularly has fits of rage. The case doesn’t only affect him, but the relationship with his wife as well. When he gets a new partner he isn’t exactly jumping for joy, but the two start working together. When they seem close to finally breaking the case Janvier isn’t completely convinced. Isn’t he able to let go anymore or is he right?
As I mentioned the show didn’t get manage to hook me after three episodes. The subject could lead to a thrilling story, but unfortunately that didn’t happen enough. The story didn’t have any momentum and halfway I didn’t expect that to change anymore. Fortunately it does, but I can imagine that many people might have already lost interest by than. I decided to stick with it which payed off a bit. Even though this is a crime show, the focus is more on Janvier, who is heavily affected by the case. This makes the show more of a psychological drama. He isn’t a character you care for much, but in the end you do want to know what is going on. It is sometimes hard to believe that Janvier is still allowed to perform his job seeing how much he does abusing his power.
Visually the show is cold and grey and mostly shot from the hand with lots of closeups. Transitions between scenes seem to consist of moments where the crew was setting up the camera, something which really annoyed me. Thanks to the story which speeds up towards the end, the show does manage to make up for its slow start.
