CONTINENTAL DIVIDE: "SPIRAL" SEASON ONE

Minds for murder. The cast of the super French drama series SPIRAL. Image: CANAL+

Fans old and new of the French thriller/legal drama series SPIRAL will get the chance to go back to the full genesis of the series and see how its familiar characters comes together when the UK's BBC 4, continuing to successfully capitalise on the screenings of critically acclaimed European series shown on Saturday nights (which kicked off to high audience viewing figures with the first series of the Danish version of THE KILLING), starts a much welcome repeat of its opening series in double length episodes every Saturday evening starting tonight. Stylish, atmospheric, brutal and uncompromising alongside its pure and uniquely appealing continental flavour, the series gets off to a sprinting start as our main cast of Caroline Proust (as fiery Police Captain Laure Berthaud, who acts as a kind of mother hen to loyal male team), Gregory Fitoussi (as the ambitious but sometimes naive Deputy Prosecutor Pierre Clement), Philippe Duclos (as the troubled family man whose work has taken over his life, Judge Francois Roban), Thierry Goddard (as Laure's bull-dog like second in command, "Gilou" Escoffier-one of the series best characters, a good man to have on your side despite his complex drinks/drugs problems), and the striking redhead Audrey Flouret as the calculating and very resourceful young lawyer Josephine Karlsson,  whose work in defending criminals leads her into lots of shady dealings that she may ultimately have trouble escaping from long term) converge to investigate a web of corruption linked to the discovery of a murdered Romanian woman found in a Parisian rubbish dump

I came into watching the series with its third season, so I'm greatly looking forward to catching up on what I've missed from 2005, as originally created and written by Alexandra Clert and Guy Patrick Sainderichin.

Outside of SPIRAL, the equally acclaimed BBC 4 channel is in grave danger of being shut down by the BBC due to the stress of recent budget cuts. From the start BBC 4 has been one of the best arenas of British television you can get, combining all types of arts programmes, drama (old and new) and music, which we (the British public) are paying for with our license fees, and which, instead of filling outrageous sums of money into the pockets of TV presenters, over-rated comedians, chat show hosts and lead series stars who aren't worth millions of pounds, the money should be properly finding its ways in to keeping quality channels like this alive and on the airwaves. There's a  FACEBOOK campaign to SAVE BBC 4. Please add your support to it here: Save BBC Four | Facebook