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    Zen

    Based on the Dibdin crime novels. Don't understand why they're not starting with the first one though...

    http://tvlistings.guardian.co.uk/

    ZenSeries 1. Episode 1/3: VendettaNew series. Detective drama, based on the best-selling novels by Michael Dibdin. Aurelio Zen begins to feel like he is the only honest policeman in Rome, as he sees the city becoming overrun by corruption and deceit - and is plunged into the thick of a political scandal when he is sent to re-investigate a murder in a remote village. As pressure increases from all sides, he finds himself longing for Tania Moretti, the Chief of Police's beautiful assistant - but matters become more complicated when a vengeful gangster starts hounding him. Drama, starring Rufus Sewell and Caterina Murino With Ben Miles, Stanley Townsend, Catherine Spaak, Francesco Quinn, Peter Guinness, Ed Stoppard, Vincent Riotta, Anthony Higgins, Sargon Yelda, Greg Wise, Francis Magee and Gregg Chillin.

    *This Sunday, 9.00pm on BBC1.

    #2
    Zen

    Bit infra dig to post on one's own thread I suppose, but I thought the series was really quite well done.

    I guess they couldn't give Zen the back story from the books (*************SPOILER***************he was part of the team that was tasked to look for Aldo Moro*********************), but still managed to retain the sense of hapless bemusement from the books. A good man trying to make his way in a bad world. However, in the books he is well, sightly more venal.

    It was also interesting how they played about with the order in which the stories were shown.

    Nevertheless, wonderful TV and I hope they make more. All in all, good stuff.

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      #3
      Zen

      I was really looking forward to these, as I love the Zen books, but I felt rather unengaged by them all. Maybe they needed to act it out in a cheesey Italian accent just for me, as that's how I read the dialogue in the books. Mamma mia! And all that.

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        #4
        Zen

        Beautifully shot, gorgeuous scenery, well-cut clothes with almost incomprehensible and desperately uninteresting plots.

        It's a police version of the exquisitely vacuous 'Nine'.

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          #5
          Zen

          But the crimes were simply the mcguffin on which the story of Zen trying to get on was hung. Read the books. His relationship with all the women in his life is much more interesting as is his relationship with his employers.

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            #6
            Zen

            Gorgeously filmed, much lighter and more frivolous than the books. At times they veered dangerously close to becoming capers and I can't stand capers. I hope they make more, but make them darker.

            Quite liked the way they managed to convey the 'you scratch my bike, I'll scratch yours' as a way of explaining the way things get done in Italy. Not so sure about the depiction of all Italian women as supermodels, though a small price to pay I guess, especially with the absurdly beautiful Caterina Murino.

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              #7
              Zen

              "Not so sure about the depiction of all Italian women as supermodels, though a small price to pay I guess, especially with the absurdly beautiful Caterina Murino"

              Indeed.

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