Distributor: Just Entertainment
Episodes: 6
Duration: 45 min (per episode)
Falco: Season 1 (DVD) – Series Review
Waking up after being in a coma for twenty-two years is not an easy thing to deal with. Twenty-two years gone, where you were unable to live your life. Life has continued, leaving you behind. The world has changed, people you used to know aren’t around anymore, places you used to visit have completely changed, the people you love have moved on. Everything old en familiar has changed, and you have to build a new life, in a new world. It’s exactly what happened to the lead character in Falco, a French crime series.
It’s 1991. Alexandre Falco (Sagamore Stévenin) leads a happy life. He’s got a good job as a police officer, a loving wife Carole (Mathilde Lebrequier) and a daughter Pauline who will have her first birthday the next day. Life couldn’t have been better. When all of a sudden Falco’s partner Jean-Paul (Arno Chevrier) calls, little could he know his life would change for good. The two of them go to nab some villains in an underground car park. On scene things go horribly wrong as Falco gets shot in the head, leaving him in a coma for twenty-two years.
Jumping forward to the year 2013, Falco suddenly wakes up in hospital. Nobody ever dared to hope this would ever happen, and it seems even his recovery goes a lot smoother than expected. He trains hard, allowing him to walk again, move his hands properly and speak clearly. He can’t wait to get out of hospital and join the force once again. Sadlythis is not as simple as he had hoped. Jean-Paul, who is now chief inspector, has his doubts about this whole idea. When Falco, after having discharged himself without permission from the hospital, ends up being the main suspect in a murder enquiry, he decides to play detective on his own. In the end, it turns out that he was telling the truth, and Jean-Paul decides to have him rejoin the force, but he has a few conditions Falco will have to abide to. First of all he will have to pay a visit to a psychologist every week and secondly, he has to cooperate with a new partner, Romain Chevalier (Clément Manuel). Falco accepts happily, although time will prove that partnership with Chevalier isn’t always that simple.
The first season of this series consists out of six episodes. In each episode there is one murder case that will have to be solved by the team. It’s only in episode one that the focus is more on Falco himself than on the actual murder, but by combining the two, making Falco a suspect, the director managed to still present us with a decent puzzle to solve. The first episode sketches Falco’s last hours before the unlucky shot, and gives us a little insight into his first few weeks after waking up.
Overall there is a good balance between the actual murder case each time, and Falco’s personal life. The focus is always on the new case the team is assigned to though. As the episodes only last about fifty minutes each, this was a great choice. This way there is enough time for the case to develop, with quite some plot twists to keep things interesting.
It’s also nice to see that Falco isn’t your typical tortured soul, who wants to do everything by himself, with his own methods. Although he goes out now and then, leaving his colleagues in the dark about his whereabouts, Falco does manage to work within the team. He also never skips any appointment with his psychologist, although going reluctantly, which in itself is quite an achievement for your average policeman. His personal life is a mess, but nonetheless he tries to pull himself together and at the same time catch up with what he missed all that time. This makes his story not only about misery and regret, but also moving on with life and trying to find happiness again.
A funny aspect that is really well pointed out, definitely in the first few episodes, is that Falco is also twenty-two years behind when it comes to technology. He doesn’t know how to switch on a computer, has no clue as to how he should use his phone and even the coffee machine is a mystery to him. His clothes are also very dated and his overall way of life is just a lot simpler than what we’re used to now: he is happy with a bed, a table and a chair which in itself is quite charming.
Acting performances are quite decent, definitely Sagamore Stévenin and Arno Chevrier prove to be very fine actors. Alexia Barlier, who plays Eva, one of Falco’s colleagues, seems to be a little bit slow into her part, but as the series progresses, she ups her game quite well.
Conclusion
Although Falco is the umpteenth crime series around, it actually does do something different for a change. The idea of waking up after a long coma might not be that original, but the way the directors handled the storyline after that, is. For once we don’t get a grumpy displeased policeman, but rather one who, despite the misery he’s in, tries to find his way in a new world, together with his family and his colleagues. This makes the series quite refreshing and original. Overall it’s definitely one of the better crime series out there.
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