Category: TV

“Master Crimes: Season 3” – TV Series Review

The charming French procedural “Master Crimes” returns for its third – and likely final – season, of Criminal Psych professor Louise (Muriel Robin) solving murders with Paris police detective Barbara Delandre (Anne Le Nen) and her quartet of students learning the craft from their mentor. Below is my review of Season One. Although I equally enjoyed more of the same mix of sleuthing and levity in Season 2, I apparently did so too late to review it for this esteemed publication. So, to refresh memories (including mine): https://www.wearemoviegeeks.com/2024/09/master-crimes-season-1-tv-series-review/

Most of the main cast returns. The aforementioned hottie (Astrid Roos) is replaced by newcomer Allyson Yang (Ayumi Roux), who brings an air of mystery about her backstory, along with a razor-sharp mind to their talented team. Louise is on the verge of finally marrying her long-time suitor, the Chief (Olivier Claverie). He’s thrilled to be making elaborate plans for a gala affair; her enthusiasm level is far short of his. Anne’s nascent relationship with medical examiner Theo (Michael Cohen) is complicated by the arrival of his newly-discovered bitchy daughter, who resents the hell out of daddy’s main squeeze. And, for one more subplot thread to run through the season, Louise’s adult son, Guillaume (Nicolas Gob, who co-stars in the classy light-hearted series, “The Art of Crime”), comes home with his tail between his legs over his failing marriage.

https://watch.mhzchoice.com/master-crimes

As to the crimes to be solved in each of the six hour-long episodes, they all provide suitable challenges with multiple possibilities for our set of protagonists. The two dozen credited writers who crafted the 18 episodes maintain consistent quality in both plotting and character development. Directors Marwen Abdallah and Amandine Bonnin, who helmed four and two episodes, respectively, made fine use of Parisian exteriors and interiors as settings, pacing the stories and sidebars so nothing ever seemed to drag.

The first begins with a woman’s body dramatically and publicly displayed. The second starts with a woman who is mutilated shortly after divorcing her oppressive hubby under the liberating influence of a self-help guru. The third victim is the Mother Superior of a convent who had made it her mission to reform criminals by bringing them into the cloisters as novitiates for God to reverse the path society had provided. Her idealistic plans did not meet with universal approval.    

The fourth gives us a considerable tone shift, as Louise, Anne and the students are abducted by a man who’d just finished serving time for murdering his wife. He confines them in the home where it occurred, rigged to explode if they don’t exonerate him and prove who really did it within 24 hours. He is convinced the culprit was Anne, who’d figured prominently in his arrest and prosecution. The fifth opens with a sous chef killed and set in an elaborately staged picnic in front of the upscale restaurant in which he’d worked under his aunt. The finale revolves around payback for a rapist/murderer who gets what’s coming to him after the law did its (presumably inadequate) part.

Of course, all the crimes are solved within the allotted time, and most of the B plotlines wrap with some degree of closure. There are still a few more story arcs worthy of pursuit if the Gods of Renewal decide to smile upon this excellent series. If they do, I’ll smile along with them.

“Master Crimes: Season 3”, in French with subtitles, streams April 28, 2026 in the U.S. and Canada on MHz Choice.

RATING: 3 out of 4 stars

“Lakeside Murders” (Koskinen) – TV Series Review

The original title of this Finnish police procedural series, “Koskinen”, is the name of the lead detective and star, Eero Aho. The US title “Lakeside Murders” highlights the city he serves, Tampere, which is located between two lakes, providing plenty of lovely scenery, even in a snow-covered season. The ten 45-minute episodes are five two-part crimes for Koskinen and his Violent Crimes squad to solve within several wintry months. All are based on a series of novels by Seppo Jokinen.

The first centers on a cyberterrorist attack on the whole city, starting with a hack of its computerized tram system. The second features a serial killer preying on young women (Don’t they all? Well, at least the ones in movie and TV thrillers). The third starts with a jewelry store heist that turns fatal, but yields screen time to an unlikely series of heart attacks killing patients in a convalescent center. Koskinen’s former colleague Roine (Pertti Sveholm) is living there, and starts raising suspicions. But they’re the only ones who are open to the idea, and must figure it out on their own.

The fourth revolves around drug thefts from pharmacies and a trio of wheelchair-bound residents of a facility. It offers a unique look at the disabled, including the fact that they can be just as loutish as their fully-mobile counterparts. The last starts with a group of teens committing various crimes, leading to drug dealing as the unifying link among them. They work for a truly dangerous boss, whose capacity for violence was learned on battlefields. 

As such programs go, this one is relatively dry. The cast is more plain-looking than the attractive stars we choose for our prime-time fare. There’s not a lot of emotional range required for any of the cops. Little levity or banter. Most of the emotion comes from Koskinen’s wife and son who resent the hell out of his preoccupation with his work. Those two grow really annoying. The most likable character might be Roine – a rotund, bearded old-timer who has more common sense and insight than Koskinen’s younger colleagues and mostly persnickety superiors.

The series is quite somber in tone, with little violence until the climactic confrontations in each duo. Some romantic subplots, but no nudity. The four episodes dealing with the elderly and disabled add an extra shot of social relevance to the mysteries. One switches formats by letting us know who the perp is long before the cops figure it out – like a “Columbo” episode. Besides his wife’s nagging, Koskinen must deal with recurring nightmares about a traumatic incident, and his loathing of paperwork that is heaped upon him after a midseason promotion. The dude is hard-wired for the field, not the office.

Caution – This season ends with a major cliffhanger. Normally, I’d resent this, as our regular readers know. But the show has already aired in Finland for four seasons, and I don’t expect a long wait for #2 to stream here.   

“Lakeside Murders”, in Finnish with subtitles, begins streaming on MHz Choice on March 17, 2026.

“Cassandre: Season Six” – TV Series Review

GWENDOLINE HAMON
ALEXANDRE VARGA

Fast upon the heels of the late January streaming release of “Cassandre: Season 5” (review), here are another quartet of light crime dramas from French TV for our eponymous homicide cop and her squad to solve in 90 minutes, apiece, comprising Season 6.

Most of what I’ve written before still applies to cast and tone. This season might tip the scales somewhat more towards individual character arcs in proportion to the crimes du jour. The romance between Cassandre’s (Gwendoline Hamon) son Jules (Luca Malinowski) and Pascal’s (Alexandre Varga) newly-discovered daughter, Lili (Fanny Ami), becomes a source of drama, along with the lighter sidebar of Pascal’s struggle to figure out how to be a good papa on such short notice to a strong-willed adult. And, of course, the will-they/won’t-they tease between the two stars continues, prolonged mostly by Cassandre’s waffling, and some bits of bad timing.

The other two members of the squad – Nicky (Jessy Salomee Ugolin) and Jean-Paul (Dominique Pinon) also have bigger developments in their off-duty lives. Pinon gets some particularly poignant moments in a couple of episodes, and nails them like the old pro that he is. Even the new prosecutor (Soren Prevost) who oversees their efforts with the genre-standard dose of fussiness shows some other sides to his mean-boss persona.

Major Kerouac (Emmanuelle Bougerol) who holds down the fort at the station also proves she may become as valuable in support as her predecessor. (Digression – I’ve been wondering why a major is subordinate to the captains and lieutenants of the detective squad. In French police hierarchy, a major is the highest ranking non-com, running the admin side – akin to a master sergeant in our army. It’s a separate chain of command from the officers of the detective side.)

As to the murders, the first opens with a burned sailboat drifting along the coastline with the charred remains of a young woman, and the guy who should have been at the helm missing. The second swirls around the death of a jerk who sabotaged a local organic farm by secretly using pesticides that cost them their prized designation and most of their business. The third involves the latest star triathlete from a family of triathlete stars of both genders who is found strangled on his running path. This one goes particularly heavy on clashes and resentments among the rest of his relatives, with more emotional complexity than usual. Series co-creator Bruno Lecigne and two other credited writers, Thomas Griffet and Jean-Marc Taba, deserve special mention for this script. The last begins with a young woman coming home to find both parents fatally shot, with plenty of possibilities to explore as to which of them may have been the primary target, and for what reason(s).

As always, individual cases are closed and personal story arcs progress, leading to Season 7, which seems likely to also follow in short order. That and Season 8 already aired abroad, with #9 having just begun its first run. I’m in for the duration, and think most of you who watch it will feel the same.

“Cassandre: Season Six”, in French with subtitles, streams on MHz Choice on March 3, 2026.

2 1/2 stars out of 4

https://watch.mhzchoice.com/cassandre/season:6

Apple TV’s FOR ALL MANKIND Drops A Stellar New Trailer

Apple TV has debuted the pulse-pounding trailer for season five of “For All Mankind,” the hit, critically acclaimed space drama series from creators Ronald D. Moore, Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi. The 10-episode fifth season will make its global debut on Apple TV with one episode on Friday, March 27, followed by one new episode every Friday through May 29.

The series, which imagines that the space race never ended, first started airing in 2019. It’s absolutely brilliant and a must-see… for many reasons. NASA is on the brink of launching the Artemis II from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to travel to the Moon. And on the eve of PROJECT HAIL MARY, fans have an extra helping of sci-fi tech nerd-ness before the Phil Lord & Christopher Miller film opens on March 20.

Season five of “For All Mankind” picks up in the 2010s, years since the Goldilocks asteroid heist. Happy Valley has grown into a thriving colony with thousands of residents and a base for new missions that will take us even further into the solar system. But with the nations of Earth now demanding law and order on the Red Planet, friction continues to build between the people who live on Mars and their former home. The ensemble cast returning for season five includes Joel Kinnaman, Toby Kebbell, Edi Gathegi, Cynthy Wu, Coral Peña and Wrenn Schmidt, alongside new series regulars Mireille Enos (“The Killing,” “Hanna”), Costa Ronin (“The Americans,” “Homeland”), Sean Kaufman (“The Summer I Turned Pretty”), Ruby Cruz (“Bottoms”) and Ines Asserson (“Royalteen”).

“For All Mankind” is created by Emmy Award winner Moore, and Emmy Award nominees Wolpert and Nedivi. Wolpert and Nedivi serve as showrunners and executive produce alongside Moore and Maril Davis of Tall Ship Productions, as well as Kira Snyder, David Weddle, Bradley Thompson and Seth Edelstein. “For All Mankind” is produced for Apple TV by Sony Pictures Television.

All four seasons of “For All Mankind” are now streaming on Apple TV.

MURDER IN… Season 15 – TV Series Review

Barbara Cabrita Quentin Faure

The title “Murder in … (Season 15)” applies to a wraparound for an anthology of 90-minute French crime telefilms that all feature different casts and locales. The common thread is that each murder mystery occurs in a new picturesque locale with protagonist cops of varying types and combinations dispensing justice, after sorting through a handful, or more, of suspects and motives. The lovely, plentiful transition scenes are noteworthy for showing why each site “du jour” – mostly coastal – attracts vacationers. One almost wonders if the national tourism board underwrites the productions to spread the business around the country. 

These TV movies have been running for about 15 years as stand-alone dramas. There’s little repetition of characters, though some actors may recur in other roles. MHz Choice streams them here under the” Murder In… “ umbrella, mostly adding the city or town for each to the title. This release is eight cases, all of which work well for those who like intelligent procedurals with relatively little blood and gore. The array of plots is as diverse as the range of settings. And since none relate to each other, one can watch them in any order, and without any need to binge – unless you’re pushing to screen them all in time to write a review in time for the first of the eight weekly releases.

They open with a Dutch ex-soldier found dead in a strange pose on the French side of lush Caribbean isle of Saint-Martin/Sint Maarten. That gets resolved after a brief jurisdictional turf dispute between the two counties that share dominion there. The one set in CATALONIA begins with the murder of an aging flamenco dancer who is trying to revive her career. In CONCARNEAU, the body of the owner of a fleet of vessels washes ashore in a wet suit, though no one knew why he would have been in the water. The surly lead cop here, Gabriel Riviere (Guillaume Arnault) is the least likeable of the season’s crime busters, seething with old grudges.

In PERIGORD, a woman is crowned queen of a territory that still maintains a mostly-symbolic royal lineage. Her reign lasts only a couple of hours before she’s assassinated. I suppose it counts as one, rather than just a garden-variety murder, since the title comes with a mansion on valuable property, a nice bundle of money, and a multi-generational tradition of supporting Chile’s Mapuche Indians as its main cause.   This struck me as one of the more interesting plots.  Next, we go to the BALAGNE area of Corsica with a citadel surrounding much of the town. That’s important since the stiff that triggers this case was ostentatiously hanged from the top of its high wall, overlooking the busy harbor. This one really delves deeply into the emotions of the principals, as the lead cop came there from Paris for her late husband’s memorial service before being roped into the investigation. Very solid, moving character drama.

AUDIERNEflirts with the supernatural. Local legend has it that ancient ruins are buried under the sea just off the coast, and that church bells can be heard by some as a warning of impending danger. Of course, that becomes a tourism lure, with dive cruises to find it, as other entrepreneurs do in many places with their local “haunted” houses. As far as I know, this is the only one that starred actors (Evelyne Bouix, Jeremy Banster) as protagonists who’d paired in those roles before. Twice.

REGULUS CAVES plied more familiar thematic territory, with a guy found on the cliffs by some ruins, fatally stabbed and posed just like a woman’s body had been 20 years earlier. That murder remained unsolved. Are they related? Anyone who’s ever seen even a handful of crime shows knows they must be. But the process of making the connection is still well played by perhaps my favorite pair of sleuths of this lot, played by Shemss Audat and Antoine Hamel.  

The last one is set in a tennis tournament taking place in Paris, on the Roland Garros’ clay courts that host the French Open. The most promising young woman in the competition is found dead on Court 13 just before matches are scheduled to begin, unearthing a web of rivalries and issues among the teen players, their parents and staff members. This one is noteworthy for the presence of former pro star Yannick Noah in a significant role. It also stars an engaging pair of cops played by Florent Peyre and Roxanne Roux, who might deserve their own series.

Bottom line – not a clunker in the bunch. Each offers pleasing visuals. All are typically restrained on displays of violence and number of shots fired, as in most European procedurals. Casting directors made fine choices all around, even including the dude I didn’t like. Genre fans will vary as to which they prefer, but none will be disappointed with these relaxing bits of mystery escapism.

https://watch.mhzchoice.com/murder-in

“Murder in… Season 15”, in French with subtitles, begins streaming on MHz Choice on February 24, with one release each week thereafter.

“TOM AND LOLA” – TV Series Review

Dounia Coesens (Lola Briand) Pierre-Yves Bon (Tom SERINO)

The French procedural series “Tom and Lola” leans into the dramedy realm, with lighthearted relationship subplots offsetting the murders they solve in less than an hour, each week of this twelve-episode first season. The eponymous police detectives, Tom (Pierre-Yves Bon) and Lola (Dounia Coesens) have a long, shared history before having gone their separate ways. Years later, he’s reassigned to her unit. Though she’s the boss, he’s equal in rank, making for ongoing amusing competitiveness between them over who will be in charge of what, and who will figure anything out first. Both actors are charming and appealing, individually and as a will-they/won’t-they duo. She epitomizes the wholesome girl-next-door image; he’s got the looks of one who has warmth to give, and lives up to that presentation, at home and with suspects. Tom and Lola were BFFs as kids, and still frequently act like playful siblings, providing comic relief from their stresses, and for our amusement. 

Since they’d been apart, she’s had two kids with two dads, neither of whom is paying the ordered support, leaving her on the verge of eviction. Tom moves in with his own surly daughter to share expenses while he desperately hopes to reunite with wife Cynthia (Blandine Papillon) who is divorcing him.  He’s a methodical neatnik. She’s more frazzled and disorganized. He follows rules and procedures; she’s more of a maverick. And Gaelle (Elodie Varlet), the attractive medical examiner who is Lola’s bestie, has the hots for Tom, and hopes his wife becomes his ex. All that sets up quite a swirl of character comedy. And, unlike several other series that blend large doses of family matters with the primary crime-solving, the screen time allotted to brattiness among their offspring, rather than body count is refreshingly low. Throughout the season, their combined teen and pre-teen trio cause far fewer problems than most of the police progeny in similar series.   

The murders occur in familiar plot territory, ranging from a variation on the locked-room mysteries, to a seemingly impossible fatal stabbing while the victim is flying solo in his hot-air balloon. One involves an old woman who believes her late husband is trying to kill her from beyond.  Setting the series in Toulon, on Southern France’s Mediterranean coastline provides several plots that begin with bodies turning up in those seemingly friendly waters for a variety of reasons. Coroner Gaelle – the most engaging character among the supporting cast – even gets her own featured episode (the 9th) when she’s accused of murdering a guy whose corpse is found in her morgue, though he was quite healthy when he strolled in. The 12th gives us a self-styled vigilante, who actually catches some baddies before problems arise.

The appeal of the cast and the visual pleasures of Toulon and its environs make these a set of nice breezy ways to spend an hour. The main plots are stand-alone, but should be viewed in order for the relationship progressions.  No cliff-hangers, though questions remain about what may be coming in Season Two. That dozen aired abroad late last year, and will surely follow this entertaining intro to our side of the Pond. You’ll like them! You’ll really like them! 

“Tom and Lola”, in French with subtitles, streams on MHz Choice on February 10, 2026.

3 Out Of 4 Stars

https://watch.mhzchoice.com/tom-and-lola

“Cassandre: Season 5” – TV Series Review

Gwendoline HAMON – Alexandre VARGA – Dominique PINON – Jessy UGOLIN

In “Cassandre: Season 5”  All the regulars return for another quartet of 90-minute light crime dramas to be solved by our intrepid quintet of coppers in this ongoing French TV series. Review of Season 4 HERE.

The will- they/won’t-they love tease between Cassandre (Gwendoline Hamon) and Pascal (Alexandre Varga) continues on its rocky course. The other three principals in the homicide squad also have several romantic and personal developments claiming some screen time.  One particular new arrival complicates life for the stars, in a plot thread that might wear thin on some viewers.

The individual murder cases are generally up to snuff with their predecessors, though the second relies a bit heavily on coincidence, and the third might turn out less surprisingly than series fans would expect.  Series creator and main writer Bruno Lecigne splits the script creation duties with Mathieu Masmondet and a slew of others keeping a steady balance between the humor and crime-solving sides of the episodes.   

No need to binge, but watch them in order for relationship progressions. I’d also recommend spreading them out a bit. Screening them back-to-back for review purposes left me a bit irritated with the ratio of soapy subplots to more substantive elements, and impatient with the stars’ avoidance of many things that should have been said or done sooner. Or maybe that’s just symptomatic of my progressive curmudgeination (My word, but feel free to use it on any old crabs in your lives.).

Despite these freshly-picked nits the season was enjoyable enough to keep me ready for the rest of the series to cross the Atlantic. They’ve already aired three more seasons, with a few more episodes scheduled for later this year. I would have liked for Dominique Pinon’s Jean-Paul to be featured more, but there are plenty of episodes left for him to enhance with his unique charm.  

“Cassandre: Season Five”, in French with subtitles, streams on MHz Choice starting on February 3.

3 Out Of 4 Stars

https://watch.mhzchoice.com/cassandre/season:5

Score! New Photos Are Here For “Ted Lasso” – Coming Back For Fourth Season Summer 2026

Today, Apple TV announced that the highly anticipated fourth season of global hit series “Ted Lasso” will officially make its global debut in summer 2026. Apple TV also shared a glimpse of the new season, which will star and be executive produced by Jason Sudeikis. The fourth season is currently in production, and fan favorites including Emmy Award winner Hannah Waddingham, Juno Temple, Emmy Award winner Brett Goldstein, Brendan Hunt and Jeremy Swift are all set to return as their celebrated characters, alongside new season four additions Tanya Reynolds, Jude Mack, Faye Marsay, Rex Hayes, Aisling Sharkey, Abbie Hern and Grant Feely.

In season four, Ted returns to Richmond, taking on his biggest challenge yet: coaching a second division women’s football team. Throughout the course of the season, Ted and the team learn to leap before they look, taking chances they never thought they would.

“Ted Lasso” season four adds Emmy Award winner Jack Burditt (“Nobody Wants This,” “Modern Family,” “30 Rock”) as executive producer under a new overall deal with Apple TV. Sudeikis stars and executive produces alongside Hunt, Joe Kelly, Jane Becker, Jamie Lee and Bill Wrubel. Goldstein serves as writer and executive producer alongside Leann Bowen. Sarah Walker and Phoebe Walsh will serve as writers and producers for season four, and Sasha Garron co-produces. Julia Lindon will write for season four, and Dylan Marron will serve as story editor. Bill Lawrence executive produces via his Doozer Productions, in association with Warner Bros. Television Studios and Universal Television, a division of NBCUniversal content. Doozer’s Jeff Ingold and Liza Katzer also serve as executive producers. The series was developed by Sudeikis, Lawrence, Kelly and Hunt, and is based on the preexisting format and characters from NBC Sports.

Following its global debut on Apple TV, “Ted Lasso” broke records and quickly earned praise from fans and critics all over the world. The first season became the most Emmy Award-nominated comedy series, and the series went on to land rare back-to-back Outstanding Comedy Series Emmys for its first two seasons on air.

“BROCELIANDE” – TV Series Review

The French TV mystery series “Broceliande” comes from a different perspective than most of what I’ve reviewed. The protagonist, Fanny (Nolwenn Leroy in the present; Rebecca Benhamour in the 2003 backstory scenes) has lived with anguish from being the only suspect in the 20-year-old disappearance of her lifelong bestie. Even worse, she has absolutely no memory of what happened on that fateful night. That woman is Laura Perrier, played in a merde-load of flashbacks by Eva Hatik. That name may evoke an association with ”Twin Peaks” baseline plot of “Who killed Laura Palmer?”, but this six-episode miniseries is nowhere near as weird as that was.

Fanny was the last among their group of fellow students to see Laura alive on that fateful night, and was widely assumed by everyone in their eponymous hometown to have killed her due to jealousy over a fellow student, Max (Arnaud Binard). He’d been dating Laura, but started having a thing for Fanny. The weight of that pervasive suspicion and animosity drove her to Paris, where she became an acclaimed plant geneticist. While receiving an award for her body of work, she gets a package from an unknown sender that takes her back to that night in the woods. The group had taken some drugs, leaving her no memory of what happened to her or Laura. No one knew if she was dead, or disappeared by choice, and Fanny couldn’t even be sure that she hadn’t killed her.

That menacing package brings Fanny back home for a rare visit, and in-your-face encounters with the lingering animosity from Laura’s still-unexplained departure. The rest of what happens would be impossible to summarize. Suffice it to say that the series serves up a ton of suspects and motives in an ever-shifting landscape of possibilities. Speaking of landscapes, the exterior locations and old buildings in France’s northwestern Brittany region, particularly the Broceliande Forest, provide the counterpoint of an idyllic setting. There’s some romance and sex (without showing any naughty bits); rather mild on the violence and gore, though there are a quite a few intense, suspenseful moments. We never see anyone killed; just brief views of the bodies afterwards.

Leroy is a singer/composer with relatively few acting credits. Based on this outing, she should be in demand for a lot more screen time. The cast is excellent all around. A trio of writers crafted and developed an impressive array of personality types and subplots to make the half-dozen 50-minute episodes go swiftly. Director Bruno Garcia moves things along at a good pace, although they might have done better with fewer redundant flashbacks. Due to the plot having more twists and turns than a figure skating competition, watching in a binge is recommended for keeping them in order.

https://watch.mhzchoice.com/broceliande

3 Out Of 4 Stars

“Broceliade”, in French with subtitles, streams on MHz Choice beginning January 27, 2026.

“Camilla Lackberg’s Erica” – TV Series Review


A Swedish author named Camilla Lackberg wrote five (thus far) novels about a mystery writer who solves crimes in the real world, similar to a Jessica Fletcher. All were made into telefilms in Sweden. This miniseries, “Camilla Lackberg’s Erica”,  is a set of three of them, adapted for French TV. They play out like a slightly more adult version of our Hallmark Mystery Movies, as I will explain.

As the first opens, Erica (Julie De Bona), a successful crime novelist living in Paris, returns to her picturesque seaside hometown to settle up estate matters from her recently-departed parents. Her married sister Anna (Maud Baecker) still lives there with her hubby and two cute kids. Erica hasn’t been back much, or remained as close with sis as they had been. Upon arrival, Erica runs into a former bestie. They make plans for dinner at the friend’s house that evening. Erica arrives only to find the woman lying in a tub of bloody water, wrists slit in what looks like a suicide. That’s what the cops, especially lead detective Patrick (Gregory Fitoussi) insist, resenting her proffered facts that point towards a staged murder. Guess who’s gonna be right, and who’s gonna come around to appreciating whom?

That episode introduces an assortment of family and romance issues dangled, for the next. As both of those fronts ramp up, the second case revolves around the killing of a young tourist, which leads to a family with three generations of zealots claiming, to varying degrees, the ability to heal, though the results haven’t been there.  In the third, a young girl is almost drowned and the Good Samaritan who tried to save her is beaten to death for his efforts. That leads to another set of dark complicated familial backstories.  In these latter two, Erica has been accepted by the cops as a useful ally/resource. All the plots by Lackberg and three other credited writers, are reasonably suspenseful.

Now for the Hallmark reference. The fictional seaside town is idyllic, shot in Hossegor and the Landes region of southwestern France. The views we get show why it thrives on tourism. Erica has the earnest intelligence and charm of Hallmark heroines like Candace Cameron Bure’s Aurora Teagarden. She’s longer on curiosity than common sense, plunging foolishly into situations of danger. The series spends more running time on romantic and family sidebars, and miscellaneous warm fuzzies than on the principal crimes, including the inevitable rocky romance with Patrick.  There’s one early scene with nudity, and a bit more action and depravity among the baddies than the typical Hallmark fare, but still pretty bloodless.

Each of the trio of mysteries is presented in two 45-minute episodes. See them in order, since those secondary story arcs are progressive. I was entertained enough to hope they adapt Lackberg’s other novels, as well.

2 1/2 Out Of 4 Stars

“Camilla Läckberg’s Erica” premieres in the U.S. and Canada on MHz Choice on January 20, 2026.

https://watch.mhzchoice.com/camilla-lackberg-s-erica