Jo: Season 1 [DVD]

There's a mystery at the heart of Jo that has no obvious solution: why would one of the two biggest stars in French cinema decide to make a short-lived TV detective series, and such a bastardised and formulaic one at that? Is it an attempt to raise his profile in the US market? Was he just offered too much money to say no? What makes it even harder to understand is the bizarre casting that puts the very French Jean Reno at the heart of a cops-and-murderers show set in Paris yet has almost every other member of the cast American or British with no attempt at a French accent among them. Even more surreal, some of the British actors like Danny Webb and Christopher Fulford adopt American accents, making you wonder if its set in Paris, Texas. The clash of accents and the American feel to the show (a French-American co-production) makes for very disconcerting viewing at first. True the British TV adaptations of Maigret never bothered with accents, but they at least adopted neutral dialects where they're all over the map here. Imagine an episode of Kojak where every member of the cast apart from Telly Savalas spoke with an undisguised French accent and you'll get some idea of just how odd it all feels. At times it's a bit like watching a Canadian or Australian cop show that crops up unannounced in the TV schedules at 2AM.Reno's the whole reason for watching, his world-weary charisma breathing some life into the clichés. He's our old friend the dishevelled screwed up cop who's good at his job but bad at his life and whose bad habits are killing him but are the only reason he has to stay alive, complete with a shelf full of prescription medication he doesn't need and a history of drug abuse that's rubbed off on his estranged daughter who's making ends meet by stealing drugs from the hospital where she works. Not to mention he's got the kind of luck that means he can't even try to chat up a woman without her turning out to be a plainclothes nun. He's such a mess you can't help feeling that the company that gets a product placement credit for supplying his clothes will have seen a massive drop in sales.The cases aren't bad, but often there's that crucial something missing that could have really put them over, though the show improves and starts to find its feet as it goes along, giving the impression that with another series it could have matured into something still better (though the final episode's introduction of Olivia D'Abo's melodramatic femme fatale to act as nemesis in a second series that will never happen does drag those expectations down). It's fairly light on guest stars - Sam Waterston, Geraldine Chaplin and a brief appearance by Leslie Caron as the only other person in Paris with a French accent - but makes for an unchallenging genre piece that gets by on the world-weary charisma of its star.There are no extras on the two disc set, which offers four episodes per disc but curiously doesn't refer to them by their titles (for the record they're Notre Dame, Pigalle, Place De La Concorde and Invalides on disc one and Place Vendôme, Le Marais, The Opera and The Catacombs on disc two).

Disappointing series - very Americanized, although with a smattering of British actors, so not very French at all apart from the lead who is a cliched cop with personal problems (drugs), estranged wife, wayward daughter (yawn). Filmed with an eye on a tourists view of Paris too. Dumbed down story lines that treats the audience as idiots and rushes through the detection part to get to the denouement in an unsatisfactory way. Can see why series two did not materialise.

Jo is a French produced police procedural television series that aired in 2013, and was recently released on DVD (for Region 2). The series is set in Paris, and stars Jean Reno as Jo Saint-Clair, a police detective leading murder investigations. If you are a fan of British crime and mysteries, the series could be an entertaining view, but it is definitely not in the same league as other contemporaries.The positive aspect of the show is the casting and the cinematography. Jean Reno is a superb actor, and the rest of the characters are also well cast. His boss is played by Orla Brady, who is commonly known from the BBC series Mistresses. There are many other familiar faces from British crime and mystery series, including Jane Wymark, who played Joyce Barnaby on Midsomer Murders. The filming locations, the sets, and the camera angles are superb.The show is in English, but the accent choice is odd. Jean Reno is one of the few characters during the entire series that speaks with a French accent. The vast majority of the characters speak in an American accent. It was very strange to see all of the familiar faces from British television speaking with an American accent. The accent choice leads to a definitive loss of “atmosphere,” though the show was filmed in Paris.There are eight episodes that are about 50 minutes each, which relates to another criticism that I have – that the stories were rushed and abrupt. Each episode has the murder investigation plot, and multiple subplots concerning the personal issues of Jean Reno’s character and his daughter. At times, the story lines take dramatic leaps forward.As a result of the American accents, and the rushed storylines, the series comes across with the atmosphere of an American produced show, instead of a French or even a British show. Depending on how many British crime and mystery series you have already exhausted, Jo is still worth watching. The ending will be abrupt, though, as a second series was planned, but cancelled shortly before filming was to begin.