The streaming service MHz Choice has brought the longtime French mystery anthology series Murder In… to these shores for the first time. Each 90-minute episode takes place in a different part of France, and a new set of police and other investigators look into a particularly perplexing murder. Season 12’s first episode takes place in Le Mans during the week of the city’s famous 24 Hours of Le Mans race, and is notable for its main guest star: Jason Priestley.
MURDER IN… SEASON 12: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: A blue signal lights up and a car speeds down a track on a test run. It stops suddenly when it sees a man’s body sprawled across the track.
The Gist: The police department in Le Mans is getting an observer from the Los Angeles Police Department. Captain Sabrina Nedjard (Eleonore Bernheim) doesn’t want to be the one to show the observer the town, but volunteers when she sees the handsome Captain Ryan Martin (Jason Priestley) before they’re formally introduced.
The idea of a cushy assignment goes by the wayside when Sabrina and Ryan are sent to the raceway to investigate the body that was found. Sabrina keeps telling Ryan to “just observe,” but Ryan keeps finding evidence that the body, a young driver for race team owner Antoine Palestro (Olivier Marchal), was shot somewhere else and dragged to the raceway. Why would someone lay the body out in such a conspicuous spot, the week of the 24 Hours of Le Mans race, no less?
As Sabrina and Ryan continue to investigate, the whole time Sabrina cautioning Ryan that he should just observe, she notices that Ryan knows some things about racing that a typical cop wouldn’t. For instance, he knows a mechanic at the track and gets information from him about a dispute the driver had with one of Palestro’s mechanics, who ended up getting fired. Also, the last time Ryan was in France, he was in Le Mans 25 years ago.
Then the fired mechanic remembered Ryan as an IndyCar racer in the ’90s, who raced at LeMans, among other places. It was in LeMans that Ryan had a severe accident, and he was expatriated to Los Angeles, and he spent years recovering; he didn’t know that he fathered a daughter back then, but the girl’s mom recently died, and her husband wanted to let Ryan know about the daughter’s presence. So, he’s not just there to “observe,” he’s there to find his daughter, who cut off contact with her stepfather after she learned the truth.
As the murder investigation continues, the Palestro family issues come up, namely the fact that his son Thomas (Roby Schinasi) wants to drive for his father’s team, but Antoine thinks he’s too “sensitive” to have the killer instinct to win.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Murder In… is a long-running anthology series, with each 90-minute episode taking place in a different part of France. Its vibe is pretty much in the Murder, She Wrote family, albeit with some more cursing.
Our Take: Let’s be truthful here: What attracted us to Murder In… after being on in France for 11 seasons is that Jason Priestley is guest starring in the first episode of the 12th season. Luckily, he’s playing an American and not trying to play a French character. But, the fact that the Canadian-born Priestley is fluent in French helps his character, who is conversational but not fluent. He stumbles over words, doesn’t know how to say many of them, and has an American accent on his rudimentary French. It makes for a fun dynamic with Bernheim’s character Sabrina, who readily comes to trust Ryan’s instincts the more he uncovers critical evidence.
Otherwise, the episode is pretty much a standard mystery procedural, with people being questioned, evidence being found, and a bit of a convoluted solution being discovered. There’s plenty of scenes of Priestley driving, which makes sense given the actor’s racing background, and the story about Ryan finding his daughter came to a somewhat pat conclusion. There seems to be a whole lot of talking on phones. So, while the episode we watched wasn’t the scintillating mystery we’ve ever seen, there was just enough human interest in it to hold our interest.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: Ryan gets to take a lap around the Le Mans raceway.
Sleeper Star: Adele Galloy who plays Palestro’s daughter Camille is in the tough position of being a key part of the story but is in no way considered a suspect. It’s certainly a thankless role.
Most Pilot-y Line: Sabrina is going to flip a coin with a fellow cop to see who gets to have Ryan ride along, and after Sabrina “volunteers” and the other cop sees what he looks like, she mutters “bitch” under her breath — then we never see her again.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Hey, it’s Jason Priestley speaking French! That alone is enough to stream the 12th season premiere of Murder In…
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
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