Captain Marleau & Other Crackling Mysteries On MHz Choice

            Everyone’s excited about the new season of Stranger Things online (and I admit I can’t wait to dive into it), but I’ve been “Upside Down” for weeks over a new series on the amazing streaming network MHz Choice– Captain Marleau, a wildly entertaining French mystery series starring the fabulous Corrine Masiero as the unconventional captain of the National Gendarmerie. Wearing her constant fur trapper hat and looking a little like Olive Oyl, she blunders into crime scenes like a bull in a china shop, saying all sorts of inappropriate comments to those around her. But beware- she is as wily and deductive as Sherlock Holmes. In one episode she admits, “I’m ugly- but I’m smart.” Shades of Columbo abound- and they even joke about that rumpled eccentric TV detective from time to time. But the mysteries are sublime and baffling and Masiero has such fun with this oddball character it’s infectious and exhilarating.

            Some great guest stars are in the first two seasons (season one and two are now available on DVD, thanks to MHz Networks). Gerard Depardieu stars in the first episode. The great Bulle Ogier in another. Charles Berling and Betty Blue’s Jean-Hughues Anglade, even David Suchet (Hercule Poirot) pops up as a retired Scotland Yard detective matching wits with the unpredictable Captain Marleau. “I underestimated you,” he finally admits. One of my favorite episodes takes place at a health spa where a body is found floating in a mud bath. Marleau closes down the spa but daily frolics there in all the pools by herself, much to the annoyance of owners. Every episode begins with her jogging or swimming or biking and she seems to always have a rapport with the medical examiners at the scene, one even invites her to dinner (she’s a vegetarian) and she admits that she does sleep with men on the first date. The show is a major delight- every episode crackles with wit and charm and Corrine Masiero is a national treasure.

MHz Choice is my ultimate go-to streaming service on TV. It has scores of International shows from Italy, France, Germany, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. And there are shows you cannot see anywhere else. The French series Spiral, a gritty police procedural (and maybe one of the best shows since The Wire), has all 6 seasons available. But I’ve been gorging on some of their new series and I have to rave about a few of them.

The Undertaker is a Swiss series about a former cop- Luc (Mike Müller) who takes over his father’s undertaking business along with the long-suffering female assistant Erika (Suly Röthlisberger). His new hire is a goth-looking oddball named Fabio (Reto Stalder), and he still helps the police department solve baffling crimes, not to mention continue his on-again-off-again relationship with detective Anna-Marie (Barbara Terpoorten). Luc is a big, burly, bear of a guy, and there isn’t one episode of the four seasons available that isn’t riveting and suspenseful. The entire fourth season has one of the most diabolical villains hell-bent on revenge I’ve ever seen.

Murder In is a French series and each hour-and-a-half mystery is set in some staggeringly beautiful part of France, be it a medieval city or a stunning coastal town, and each has a different set of detectives (alright one female detective does re-appear a few times). We get to solve murders in such spots as Rocamadour, Avignon, Martinique, Pyla, the French Basque Country- the settings take your breath away. The wonderful thing about this series is how they examine each new detective and their back-stories, romances, demons. Each one is indelible and the actors portraying them are varied in age and sex. It’s just the best.

The Sandhamn Murders is a wonderful Nordic crime series based on the novels of Vivica Sten. Set in a scenic coastal setting, the main detective Thomas is played by that amazing actor Jakob Cedergren who was brilliant in a recent film called The Guilty, where the whole movie is a disgraced cop on the phone with a kidnapped victim- and is suspenseful as hell. In this show, Thomas has separated from his wife after a family tragedy and gloomily lives in his house on a remote island and boats into town whenever there’s a murder. He meets the lovely Nora (Alexandra Rapaport), an unhappily married woman who has lived there for years and helps Thomas string the pieces together on some strange murders. The unresolved sexual tension between the two lasts through all four seasons. But the setting on the outer Stockholm archipelago is absolutely gorgeous, and the mysteries are twisty and satisfying. (If you want more Jacob Cedergren– he’s in an electrifying 12-episode series about a team searching for serial killers Those Who Kill that is also on MHz.)

Nele Neuhaus Mysteries is four movies based on the books by the German writer Cornelia Lowenberg. They are usually set in the Taunus mountain region near Frankfurt and the landscape helps sculpt the almost twisted fairy tale-like crimes. The first episode is about a missing girl who played Snow White in a local theatrical show, and damned if there isn’t a body in a glass coffin somewhere. The detectives are Oliver (Tim Bergmann), a handsome, happily married man, and the troubled Pia (Felicitas Woll) who has just returned to work after a horrifying ordeal and still suffers PTSD over. I got really caught up in these and swept up in their dark mysteries.

My new obsession is the German show Detective Ellen Lucas, and it’s thrilling to see an older woman as lead in this show. Set in Regensburg, Bavaria, Ellen (Ulrik Kriener) is a seasoned detective who is brought in to head the squad. They are immediately turned off and resistant to her gruff, uncompromising ways. But eventually they warm up to her and she even has a secret relationship with a colleague. She rents a flat in the home of a gruff, but kindly, elderly eccentric, and Ellen’s wild-child sister show up to stir things up- especially in one episode where the sister’s handsome, ex-con boyfriend becomes lead suspect in a murder. I adore Ulrike Kriener though- she brings to this character such depth and warmth and resolve. There are also shocking turns for the team during the first season and an untimely death that is genuinely heartbreaking. The second season just popped up and I know where I’ll be this weekend.

Now there are all sorts of series on MHz Choice besides mysteries- dramas, crime series, spy thrillers- I find myself diving into another series already up on the website and gorging for days at a time. If you are weary of the content of Netflix and Hulu and Amazon Prime (and who isn’t), you need to treat yourself to this great international TV series network. And if you haven’t seen Spiral yet, dive in and hold on to your seat. It’s a bumpy, harrowing ride that you won’t easily forget.