Spiral (Engrenages) 2005-2020

More's the pity Audrey Fleurot wasn't. Off camera at least.

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Sorry Ambler, without your presence I didn't see the point. Needless to say according to my Facebook feed, the new series is well underway. No idea on when (or even if) it will appear on BBC4. Looks like Laure and Josephine (plus the Judge and Gilou) have a meaty storyline. Knock-ons from Laure's pregnancy, Josephine going off the rails etc.

As I say, if I could speak French I'd be all over the clips that the page via StudioCanal keep posting.

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We'd hope so. Though I did some prodding around this here web and some reckon it could come out before the year's out. The final episodes of the series are airing Monday/Tuesday in France.

I should correct myself in that it's Canal+ not Studio Canal (too many old movies on DVD of late). According to a blog post, the show had trouble finding a commune to film in for this series what with all that has happened in France past few years. 'Safety was a concern' etc. Supposedly it works into the sixth series in some way.

Gilou versus an ISIS lunatic would be entertaining. If I recall him shoving a suspect through a wall or some such once.

Paging Ambler, paging Ambler...Saw last week that still no Spiral but the Beeb seem to have taken the plunge on a new French drama called Witnesses, starting tonight.

Thanks to their thumbnail I figured it was Spiral as it has none other than Audrey Fleurot in it

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09h3nwt/witnesses-a-frozen-death-episode-1

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No worries. I should add that when I first the first episode of Witnesses (Les Temoins) I suddenly realised (thanks to its weird title sequence) that I've seen the first series of this and probably on More4. Seems there was a two-three year gap between the two seasons.

Spiral I reckon will replace this (which is eight episodes, so late December perhaps unless we got more Montalbani)

Spiral returns to BBC4

Saturday 30th December

2100-2305hrs

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I've yet to move onto Netflix/Prime. The latter I should for the Grand Tour and both if they took on old sitcoms and cop shows.

I'm sure Spiral might catch up with one or the other. No word on a seventh season, Spiral tends to average one every two/three years though.

Think Spiral 6 is starting okay. Everyone looks so damn tired which makes a change to Witnesses. Good opening with Laure, a very 'real' character still and her dynamic with Gilou. I keep forgetting what happened in Spiral 5 apart from Pierre dying.

Roban seems one of the more different characters this time round next to Josephine. Josephine's still dealing with Pierre's death and whatnot, but Roban has a bit more going on. Always imagined that in his youth, Roban was a bit of a radical lawyer.

Audrey Fleurot is meant to be doing a few things this year -one a Harlan Coben (?) thing here in the UK but also something set in Brest where she plays a naval officer. Makes me wish we could get our mits on Un Village francais which features Fleurot and Gilou's Thierry Godard. See if Netflix or someone does it.

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No worries, I strongly suspect you'll have a better look at it than I do. I notice this series is longer than recent ones (12 episodes compared to 8). Have to hope it keeps up over the course of the season.

Forgive the spoiler, but episode 3 started off with an incredible tracking shot -well, if you ask me. Focusing in on the underground train, panning around and then down and in on Josephine. Also, I know it was a serious moment but couldn't help but laugh at the sight of Laure trying to break up Gilou and Tintin's [admittedly idiot looking] fight.

As befitting a series that roughly translates as gears/or chains, there's quite a lot going on -Laure and the baby, the murdered cop, Tintin and his kid, Gilou and his girlfriend/cocking up the case, Josephine and her rape, Roban and his cancer...

With the end of Spiral 6, there was an announcement prior that there will be a seventh series. Suggestions are that (from the Express of all places) that Spiral 7 could be August 2019.

Six was a mixed bag but not bad.

in the unlikely but yet somehow possible event Ambler swings past, Engrenages 7 has finally aired on BBC4. Started last night (12th Oct') and 12 episodes strong.

Taken the Beeb forever (must've been almost 18 months since it aired in France and they're already getting on with Engrenages 8) but at last

Saw Spiral as a 'Pick Of The Day' in the current Radio Times and immediately thought of this thread and your good self, Hilly.

Thank ye Blunty. I sometimes think I'm the only person keeping it going. It got forgotten by all the Nordic stuff that descended on Beeb 4 years ago. It's a solid start to Engrenages 7, Audrey Fleurot locked up in a woman's prison (how we could do with Ambler, presently, ha!) and yet it feels a little tidy so far but Engrenages by its title alone means things will unravel over the series.

Season 6 is on the iplayer at present. More is the pity all of it isn't.

As we anticipate Engrenages' eighth and final season, the Beeb have decided to put up all previous seasons for the next year.

Tend to forget how long this show's been going. The first series was 2006. My entry into Engrenages was backwards. A review had me starting on series 3, then I managed to catch up on 1-2 between 4 and 5 so the timeline's a bit skewered.

But, funny how people changed over fourteen years. Engrenages tends to come out every 2-3 years anyway but seeing the likes of Audrey Fleurot, Caroline Proust and Gilou, whose real name escapes me such is the hour, fresh faced is jarring when you see how they are now. Not that it's a case of rapid aging but Fleurot...well, golden red hair in 2006...

Sorry, I was lost. Ambler, if you're reading and I know you are in whatever guise, Spiral returns soon.

So, after fifteen years Spiral has wound up. Somehow managed to watch all eight series inside of a month and thus you get to see the actors for one grow older (the most obvious is Audrey Fleurot but not in a negative way, she was 28 when the show started) but the characters, those that make it, change as well.

I first got into Spiral at the start of the third season, going in off a Times pick of the day recommendation. Spiral was BBC4's first big foreign-drama hit then Borgen and the other Scandinavian hits came and so Spiral was seemingly forgotten, didn't help that after the fifth series it took the Beeb almost two years after it was produced to get a season out. Thus season 8 was the rarity, made in 2020, broadcast here in 2021.

Anyway. If you're reading this Ambler, somehow I have a feeling you might, it was a decent enough end to the show. For those in Blighty, it's on the iplayer, all 8 seasons, for the next 10 months.