La promesse

A good production and better than we seem to be able to produce in the UK these days.

I like the way the viewer was left to work things out before it became obvious towards the end of the first episode.

The structure continued well up until half way through the 6 episodes, then it lost its way.

The prime suspect suddenly was found guilty of another crime, although it was hardly mentioned, and disappeared from the story.

A lot of questions were not answered, or asked come to that (Lilas's criminal history as an adult for instance).

In the end the solution was all rather muddled, implausible and disappointing.

I read a review comparing this to Spiral and began watching in high hopes. It becomes clear very quickly that this isn't going to attain that high standard. Spiral built up tension and sucked you in. This dissipates tension as unlikely actions and reactions increase in number, eventually rendering the whole thing rather laughable.

We did watch it to the end as our decision to cease came with only 1 episode left. We should have decided sooner!

There are many improbable plot twists in French police thriller 'The Promise', but that's just par for the course. Even before things get silly, however, the basic conceit lost me, due to its essential laziness: a policewoman starts digging into crimes her father, also a cop, had previously investigated; and because she cares, she is also right (or at least, more right than anyone else) about everything and thus justified in doing absolutely nothing by the book. There's a good reason we expect our real detectives to be dispassionate, but the opposite state of affairs is so common in television series it's not only inaccurate, but cliched. For me, 'The Promise' never rises about its hackneyed premise.

This really can't be compared to Spiral which apparently is from same production team and the reason I watched.

A female police detective who's bad at her job surely isn't the ideal protagonist for this flawed series.

It just about gets to episode five with some credibility before bringing on a series of risible belly laughs - which is obviously not the audience response the producers are hoping for.

Maybe just one day there will be a detective who has a supportive partner, that would be radical. And that is just one of the many cliches that abound in the poor script.

Influenced by the, in my opinion, relatively low rating (7.0/10 out of 116 ratings at Aug 28 2021), this series positively surprised me in quite a few matters: reasonable plot (not a whodunit but about the hunt on a horrible child kidnapper), as well as the acting. Very good camera work and direction and some fine music. Exiting and tensive till the end... A recommendation to everyone who likes a solid and firm thriller.