User reviews

I love this series!

I do not know why I hope to see, I don't usually see series in French. I am one big fan of the crime series, investigation and judicial cases.

This series is very emotional, thrillish and tense, with many messages , from those to learn and think, and the characters are very interesting.

I hope for a next season.

This French Canadian crime drama is set in Montreal and opens with Anthony Kamal starting his first day forking for a special unit of the local police. Here he meets his new boss, Maryse Ferron; veteran officer Bernard Dupin and sketch artist Eve Garance. Eve has the ability to 'read' people and coax them to reveal details they didn't realise they'd seen to come up with accurate likenesses of suspects and the crime scene. She is also bi-polar and haunted by the disappearance of her baby son many years previously. Other characters have their own problems too. Most cases last two episodes but there are elements that run through the series.

I've watched many series in French but I think this is the first French Canadian show I've watched. On the strength of this I wouldn't mind checking out a few more. The cases are interesting and our protagonists are varied and likeable. It also manages to provide some interesting surprises. Having two episode cases alongside longer running stories is effective; giving satisfaction each time one is solved while keeping one interested in the longer plot arcs. It does inevitably require some suspension of disbelief... I couldn't describe somebody I see every day in the detail witnesses recall following a glimpse some time ago. The cast does a solid job bringing their characters to life. Overall I'd recommend this to fans of subtitled crime dramas.

These comments are based on watching the series in French with English subtitles.

It took me a while to warm to this original crime drama series about a police sketch artist who helps to solve crimes investigated by the Montreal Police by using all her skills and emotional intelligence to create electronic 'identikit' profiles of both victims and suspects. Éve Garance (played by Rachel Graton) is surrounded by a rather oddball bunch of colleagues, but while they all contribute something interesting, her civilian background and kind of superpower of 'reading' people make Éve central to solving each crime. The final 'piece' in the 'jigsaw', if you like, and in that sense 'Portrait-Robot' AKA 'The Sketch Artist' is reminiscent of CBS's wonderful 'The Mentalist' in the noughties.

Credit to all the actors and production staff involved, particularly Sophie Lorain who plays Maryse Ferron, Éve's logic-obsessed wheelchair-bound boss and Alexis Durand-Brault who directs the action (Lorain and Durand-Braul also wrote the series), and the other co-stars Rémy Girard as the moribund veteran 'hack' detective Bernard Dupin and his rookie sidekick crime scene technician Anthony Kamal (Adrien Bélugou) add a bit of intrigue and humour to the proceedings. It wouldn't be 'noir', of course, if Éve didn't have some sort of personal issues, but the on the whole the 2-episode story arcs steer clear of the worst clichés and I felt there was enough by the end of Series 1 to want more. I watched 'Portrait-Robot' on British television as part of the 'Walter Presents ...' features of mainly foreign language crime dramas on Channel 4, but would imagine the series is widely available. Give it a go, why don't you?

This is a very decent offering from French Canadian Television: well scripted, well directed, well acted, and contrary to the naysayers - it is believable! To address the comment that the senior police officer was too old and would be too unfit to carry out his duties: perhaps you missed the scene of his working out in their gym, monitoring his vitals and talking about how much longer the workouts needed to last?! In Canada, our officers have routine fitness training and assessments- so that critique is just ageist at best and wrong at worst!

As for Eve knowing how to retrieve "memories", might I suggest you educate yourselves: it's a well established and documented fact that the brain takes in all sorts of details, that may only be retrieved under certain circumstances and questions. Thus this "flaw" as some reviewers called it, is anything but! Just because it may challenge your current position or lack of knowledge, does not make something unbelievable!

To all those naysayers, I say NO! Educate yourself, and stop exhibiting the D-K effect in such startling force!

The show is believable, honest and very human - it portrays the good and the bad in each of us and address complex human behaviours as well as medical issues.

This is a show that is not to be missed!!

Well done Canada.

Both my wife and I have watched the series. I binged it over a week and my wife is still catching up. There are some glaring holes in the storylines and also some actual facts pertaining to the characters as to their conditions that are well documented and spoken about on social media but the characters are naively unaware. That can be annoying at times but correctable in later series if the show continues. It is TV, after all, so we enjoy it for what it is. Critics who are nitpicking are just looking for recognition and can go elsewhere for their desires. Even if we do have to watch it with subtitles and annoying commercial breaks.

Like the other reviewer mentioned, this is a very watchable show. Yes, there are obvious choices in characters and surroundings, but that's because it works! Just like how I hate it when they implement all sorts of weird or new factors to a romantic comedy, when all we always want to see is girl meets boy, something happens that keeps them apart, but they find eachother in the end. With detectives it's the same. And does it have to be completely credible? No, then I'll watch the news for what actually happens in the world.

What I also like is how they combine old detective work with new methods, exact with less exact science, and use electronics and social media like they are actually used nowadays.

The only downside to this old (en new) skool detective show is that they always have to use grewsome storylines. And since having a baby my mind does not want to handle this anymore while watching a show for fun. But this show kept me fascinated enough to overrule that feeling. Hoping to see the next season soon.

I have been a forensic specialist for 50 years. I have seen every movie x 5. Sick of searching for something new and then i stumbled on this. It's not the plots, it's the characters. I particularly like the forensic scientist. Shades of the bbc series, silent witness, and not quite so good bec it's too quick. I like silent witness for its slow pace and multi episode format. Also the relationships are given, and have been given, lots of time to develop. Apart from that, some of the plot lines in the sketch artist are intriguing - even if you've seen them x5. I will watch this to the end without feeling this it time i will never get back.

Full marks..

The trouble is though that the prémisses and the characters are not particularly believable. Remy Girard playing seasoned detective Bernard Dupin was seventy when the series was filmed and admits to being that age as part of a plot in Season Two. It's inconceivable that he'd be on field work as he's grossly overweight and can barely walk. And he's way past the age for retirement. Even worse, he subdues fit young thugs and hitmen without any trouble at all. In real life these guys would have pulverised him.

As for Eve Garance, the sketch artist, it just isn't credible that she gets witnesses to remember small details such as a mole or an earring, or even eye colour, in the contest of a rapid set of events or just a glimpse of the perp.

Maryse and Anthony have important supporting rôles as the head of the unit and CSI boy respectively. The writers seem to have woken up to the fact that they should have written in a techy IT person from the beginning so Elektra had a far more prominent place in the action in season two.

In the background, we have not particularly convincing human interest stories about the five main characters.

The crimes they deal with are over the top even for north America.

I admit I binge-watched but it's still pretty rubbishy. However, the actors and the tight direction kept it together for the main part.

We had three major cliffhangers at the end of season two. I assume a third one will come next year.

Anxiously awaiting news of a season four!!!! This is a great show. If you're going to get hung up on details, you don't have the requisite imagination to watch The Sketch Artist in the first place. It's fun! This show should be watched "full stream". It's not your "true crime story ripped from today's headlines". It's bold, uncharted, unpredictable, and edgy. Relationships between the characters are well-developed. Easy to get involved with their lives and weaknesses and triumphs. Every aspect of The Sketch Artist was enjoyable. Needs more exposure so viewers can get caught up in the seedy side of Montreal.

This series has been delightfully entertaining. All the characters are interesting and so different from one another but display teamwork that is remarkable in law enforcement. The main character is a bi-polar sketch artist who helps victims of crimes recount and remember situations and their attacker. The sketch artist is also dealing with her own personal demons, but she's fascinating to watch. Unlike American made series, the characters look and act real. Not everyone is perfect looking or fit, just normal looking people which always makes viewing more realistic. Several who have reviewed the series are fussing about an older actor playing the role of a detective, but age has nothing to do with the characters ability to solve crimes. His experience is underrated by some who have criticized his age and health which is total nonsense. I'm near the end of Season 3 and haven't lost interest as each season gets better with new twists and turns.

I checked this out on the PBS website, because it looked like a bit of a change from the copycat crime/mystery series populating PBS offerings these days.

I was right. From the very start, we learn that the four main characters are a fascinating little group of misfits, and the actors who portray them are wonderful too. Then add in the two or so other characters who are regulars on the show, and you have a full deck of entertainment.

So it's sort of immaterial what the investigations and crimes are, because the characters' personal lives are even more interesting. But the writers are good and have cooked up an imaginative slate of crime and mystery events, some of which regularly intersect with a mob boss and some which give the viewer a gasp of surprise and shock when they suddenly happen.

One other interesting thing is that the series takes place in Montreal, so the characters speak French (with easy-to-read subtitles), or rather a Franglais mix of weirdly accented Montreal French called 'Joual' mixed with English words, phrases, and sentences. It's pretty interesting in itself.

More unbelivable old men being super heros, get real.. To QUOTE The trouble is though that the prémisses and the characters are not particularly believable. Remy Girard playing seasoned detective Bernard Dupin was seventy when the series was filmed and admits to being that age as part of a plot in Season Two. It's inconceivable that he'd be on field work as he's grossly overweight and can barely walk. And he's way past the age for retirement. Even worse, he subdues fit young thugs and hitmen without any trouble at all. In real life these guys would have pulverised him.

As for Eve Garance, the sketch artist, it just isn't credible that she gets witnesses to remember small details such as a mole or an earring, or even eye colour, in the contest of a rapid set of events or just a glimpse of the perp.