While I’m waiting for an auction to finish for tickets to our dolphinarium - housing dolphins, entertainment and children’s playgrounds - I have some time to kill. So I thought, I’ll write and tell you guys a little bit about an interesting TV series I’ve watched recently. Actually, two series.
I have enough time to write this post. I still have about three-plus hours to kill. I’ve been trying to win this auction since yesterday. I’ve already had three attempts; Missed all of them. Trying for the last second, but not guesstimating the highest bid coming in. First time in my life I am bidding online like this; Figuring out what other bidders do. So far, seems like they overbid 20-30% easily at the last second.
Next time. Next time I shall succeed! 🥳
Otherwise, more waiting time for the round after 😆
But anyway, I can also buy those tickets online, apparently for roughly the same amount as what people are bidding. But this is just a sport. Or maybe it’s actually a little bit addictive ... Very interesting!
So, like I said earlier, two series.
I don’t have that many streaming subscriptions, and I switch them around now and then. I haven’t had Netflix for quite a while now. But with my mobile subscription I get a free streaming service, SkyShowtime. I didn’t really watch much on it.
Time to try something.
I started up SkyShowtime; Just for the fun of it. Again it 'pushed' (in the recommendation section) the same series as the last few times I started the streaming thingy.
The Agency.
I had already heard quite a lot about it. I also understood that it was a remake of a French series. I had no idea beyond that. So I started watching it.
And I have to be honest, I really got into it!
In fact, I had a couple of late nights because of that, especially during the week, when I ended up watching another one or two episodes too many, cutting my dreamland time short quite a bit. "But hey, I can deal with it. I’m used to it. I’ve been cutting short for thirty, forty years by now." Two seasons. Twenty episodes or something. Yeah, probably somewhere between seventeen and eighteen hours.
I really enjoyed The Agency
I have to say, occasionally I thought: Keep the pace going. Don't slow down. And then it sped up again. The story isn't just a simple story. It has various stories intertwined, a few side stories and more than a few twists and turns. This made my brain stay out of the chill room. Attention required. For sure! But even with razor-sharp focus (exaggerating here since it wasn't that sharp), I questioned myself out loud: "Hang on, does this actually make sense in the storyline?" Somehow, the dialogue and the story didn't fully match, or felt a bit fabricated .. uhm 'forced' is perhaps a better word.
But I just pushed that aside again, because the acting…
Yeah, what The Agency made exceptionally well is the acting. The main cast is great. Fassbinder is absolutely a killer! His colleagues, co-workers, whatever you want to call them, are also played close to perfection. And then, the whole look and feel is exceptional as well! The camera work is of high quality; high-level cinematography at play.
Yeah. A great series.
With a huge cliffhanger at the end of season two, I immediately started investigating if a season three is in the planning. And when. It turns out to be a: Yes and an I don't know. "Yes", for a season three. And an "I don't know", for when exactly. "Ok, I wait for the announcement."
What next?
Before I could start scrolling, I started to think about the French version, the original. "What is that French series actually like?", a voice asked me repeatedly. Darn voice. Should be forbidden 😆
So I became curious.
But on the other hand, I thought: "Maybe I should leave the French version for a while. Probably the same story. I’ve just watched it. Maybe I should go back to reading a book, or watch a film, or watch a completely different type of series?"
But I stayed interested.
Actually, intrigued.
So I quickly searched the internet for the title of the French series and wanted to see where I could find it: "Le Bureau des Légendes". Turns out it is also on SkyShowtime. So yeah, it was only a few clicks away. And suddenly I was watching the first episode a few weeks ago.
It took me a little while to get into this one.
It actually started with the same kind of scenes. Or actually, with the same storylines, scenes and dialogues. Although the story is set in a different environment, different cities, different countries. That is in fact, very relevant to the experience of the American remake compared with the original French version. But I’ll come back to that later.
I needed two or three episodes before I really got into it.
At first I thought the acting was not that good. But apparently I just needed to grow into it, because actually it wasn’t that bad at all. More honestly, it was pretty good, for sure, for European standards. Look, during the first few episodes I was thinking: "Yeah, nobody laughs. Nobody pulls a different face. Nobody gets angry. They stand there staring at and talking to each other like robots or whatever."
But once I got into it, I have to say (and I can already tell you this after watching just two seasons of the French series out of five altogether), the French series is better than the USA remake. Quite a bit better.
We can obviously argue about that. But at least when it comes to the story, the dialogue, the match between the two. How everything fits together. It’s on a (much) higher level than the American version. Quite a lot to do with the cities and countries that are selected. While both have many of the same scenes and dialogues, the background is totally different.
“Much” might be a little exaggerated.
The dialogues fit the scenes and fit the way the story developed throughout the entire first two seasons. The French series is also less outspoken, perhaps less dramatic. It’s less black and white. Has fewer extremes. What’s the word? It’s less massive, in the sense that the American version regularly seems to look for these big moments, while the French version is more timid, more nuanced. More subtle.
The French series is more European!
The whole aesthetic is much more in line with everyday life; What you can experience in real life. People wear slightly scruffy clothes. Office buildings are just like the ones we know. With messy corners, small rooms, chaos, and whatnot. Not ridiculously huge, luxurious, and all that. The people feel more real, in the sense of: This is how you might actually encounter them on the street in real life.
And that really appeals to me a lot.
Although I have to be honest, the cinematic aspect of the American version and the acting are absolutely fantastic. I have to give it that. But the overall package of the French series makes it better for me.
Especially, because the storyline fits better. It’s more subtle. And because of that, I find it more gripping. That doesn’t mean I’m going to ignore season three and potentially the other seasons of the American version. I’m definitely going to watch them.
If I had to give the American series a rating, it would be somewhere around an eight. Well, maybe an eight and a half, on a scale of one to ten. Then I’d give the French one somewhere between a nine and a nine and a half. Giving tens is pretty difficult for me, so that’s why I’m leaving it there. I just want to show that, in my experience, there’s roughly a one-point difference between them.
One thing that is a little difficult with the French series on SkyShowtime is that there is no English dubbing. So I really had to listen to French, or other languages I don’t understand. French is obviously the original language, and I prefer listening to things in the original language anyway, so I’m basically reading subtitles the whole time, moving some of the eye focus away from the scenes themselves. With the American version, I could follow most of the dialogue without any problem, without the need for the subtitles.
Something else I liked about the French series is that there’s a voice-over. The main character speaks his thoughts, like the series Dexter. But not too much tough. It does sometimes help you understand why a certain turn or twist; What the main character is planning to do and why he does the things he does. Sometimes it’s a little unnecessary, because he tells you things where you think: "Yeah, but I can see that too, can’t I?" or "Isn’t that just obvious?" But quite a few times it actually gave me that little hook. That answer I was looking for in the American version, where I just couldn’t quite figure out what was going on.
So, all in all, by the end of season two I thought: "Do I now start the first episode of season three?"
Like I said, there was a huge cliffhanger at the end of season two.
Obviously, I did.
The start: Right into the 'great' section. Again!
So now I’m really curious to see how that will work out in the American version. Because, as I said, the main story takes place in different countries in the American version compared with the French version. And that makes an enormous difference. How the opening scene of the third season can be. So I’m already wondering how they’re going to do that in the USA remake.
For now, I think I’ll probably binge my way through the remaining three seasons of the French series over the next few weeks.
If you're going to try The Agency and/or Le Bureau des Légendes, something I should probably mention here: for both the American and the French versions, season two is better than season one. So yeah, if you’re going to try either one, or both, don’t give up too quickly. Don’t immediately think: “This isn’t for me.” Because it gets better. And if season three means even more of that, well…
That certainly raises expectations, doesn’t it?
By the way, I’m now curious to see where my auction stands. Only about an half an hour left, so I’m going to concentrate on that again.
I wish you all a great weekend. NJOY!
screenshot: Won the Auction just yet