Quality. Pure and simple. Qual-ih-TEE! This is speaking from the perspective of a witness to all the total shit that gets thrown up on Netflix, and supposedly somehow managed to get on TV. The French pulled something pretty groovy here.
So, Les Revenants, or The Returned, is at a glance a show about a little French town in which the dead start coming back as their old selves. Mostly.
I'm not going to go and say it's a zombie show, as while they are technically "undead", the essential traits of mindless, flesh-eating zombies seem to be lacking... For the most part. Seriously, it's weird, and I've seen evidence both for and against the horde-of-mindless-flesh-addicts undead, very little "for", that is, so.... Yeah.
Now, that quality I was talking about: actors/actresses seem skilled or at least competent, characters are deep and engaging, the storyline is complex, a bit all-over-the-place, and VERY intriguing, the soundtrack is simply awesome ("Wizard Motor", Mogwai), and the whole damn thing is just BEAUTIFUL. Cold, morose, winding, stunning.
Now, I have ONE QUALM. I mean, maybe more than that (I've gotten mildly annoyed by one particular main character), but... MAIN qualm. Yeah. And that is that the season 1 finale (as far as I've gotten) is simply anti-climactic. I mean, it wasn't THAT bad, but in context what happened seemed somewhat irrelevant and uninteresting. The BUILDUP throughout the episode was terrific, but... Eh. Yeah. Perhaps this is simply my primitive mind demanding some gore and explosions, but in all honesty I wasn't alone in my opinion. Just... eh. I'm tired. Watch the show, and hope for some more ... something in season 2. Exhaustion-rant over.
Apparently there was a movie first, which apparently sucked. Don't watch the movie. Just the show, for now.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2521668/
I DON'T KNOW if there was a book first, but it would make sense, given the complexity of the tale and the movie's failure.
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