Boob Tubery

The Belgian Original

Let's talk TV.  Not long ago I finished watching a  series. Then I watched it again, but different.

(Old philosophical question: Can you step into the same TV series twice?)  But Professor T is sort of a set of  non-identical twins.

The first iteration of Professor T was a Belgian series (2015-2018) starring Koen De Bouw as a highly eccentric but brilliant professor of criminolgy at the  University of Antwerp.  He assists the police there while struggling with his considerable assortment of neuroses, especially a germ phobia.  He also has an unfortunate addiction to telling the truth, no matter who it hurts.

Professor Teerlinck is an example of the Holmes school of annoying genius detectives.  Fun to watch but hell on the people who work with them.   One of the entertaining aspects of the show is that we see the Professor's active fantasy life acted out before our eyes. So the police officers will suddenly start dancing, or a rival professor might explode...

The British Version

I have been watching the show on PBS and now you can also go there to see  its relative, the BBC version. In this one Professor T is Jasper Tempest, a Cambridge scholar played by Ben Miller (the original star of Murder in Paradise.)  All of the plots are borrowed from Belgian episodes, with significant differences, of course, and those changes are what fascinates me. For example, in an episode called "The Perfect Picture" the plot is mostly the same but the motive and murderer change.  It feels very much like the authors of the British episode had a grudge against a certain profession and modified the plot accordingly.

The biggest change, though, is the story that ends Season Two in both series.  It feels like the English team wimped out on this one, although to be fair, this may relate to a difference in the laws in the two countries.

On the whole I liked the Belgian version better, largely because of the main actors. Miller plays the professor with only two expressions: Man With Toothache, and Man Pretending Not To Have Toothache.  De Boew on the other hand, has mostly one expression: supercilious superiority, which  fits the character better.  (To be fair, he has one more facial tic: terror when he is around his mother.)

British Fantasy Scene

And that brings up one area where the British version wins: Frances de la Tour plays Mom and if you don't love Frances, fie on you. Another place where the Brits prove superior is the surreal scenes from Prof T's imagination, although they seem to have forgotten to include them in the last few episodes.

You might want to compare our own Janice Law's take on the Belgian version.   Oh, apparently there are German and French versions too, but they haven't shown up on my screen so far.

Now I would like to talk about  the new reboot of Matlock. There are spoilers ahead so if you plan to watch the show please stop reading now or jump down below the picture of my cat.

Okay?  Everybody gone?

The new Matlock is a Trojan horse.  It cheerfully promotes itself as a reboot of the old show but it is nothing of the kind.  All the two series have in common is a senior citizen lawyer with a Southern accent (very occasionally in the latter version).

Kathy Bates plays a lawyer pretending to bear the name of the old TV show (which is fictional in her universe) but she is carrying out a convoluted scheme and a lot of what she says turns out to be lies.

The series this reboot resembles more closely is Mission: Impossible.   At the beginning of each episode of that old spy show we learned a little about the team's cunning plan.  But at some point (usually just before a commercial break) something would appear to go disastrously wrong.  Only after the ad for corn flakes or whatever would we learn whether the disaster was 1) part of the plan, 2) not part of it  but a contingency that had been prepared for, or 3) uh oh, we're in deep doodoo.

The same thing happens frequently in the reboot.  For example, Matlock gets caught in someone's office.  Is she in big trouble, or was this part of her scheme all along?  Cool stuff.

As other viewers have said this plot feels like it can't run for years.  I hope it is intended for a limited run.  Also the underlying story lacks the grim realism of, say, a Scooby-Doo cartoon.

But I keep watching it, largely because of  Kathy Bates, who each week offers a master class in physical acting.  When she is silent her face reveals more than the other actors do when they are speaking.

Okay, as promised, here are  my cats.

Quickies on two more crime shows I have been enjoying:

A Man on the Inside (Netflix). Ted Danson plays a widowed professor who is hired by a private eye to move into a senior complex and find a jewelry thief.  He isn't very good at it but the show is warm and funny and the elder actors (including Sally Struthers) are having a great time.

Where's Wanda? (Apple+) is in German with subtitles.  When the Klatt family's teenage daughter disappears the parents decide to plant spy cameras in every house in their lovely suburban neighborhood. They soon find that almost everyone has secrets, including members of the family.  The show is funny and sad and intriguing. But I have to say: I was almost at the end of the series when characters began behaving in such offensively stupid ways to keep the plot going that I gave up on the show.

Wishing you better luck. 

  

 

The Importance of Stupidity

Mystery fans tend to celebrate the well-stocked minds, brilliant logic and analytical genius of the great detectives, but let's be fair. The genre itself relies to a great extent on stupidity. I am not talking now of the many human follies that supply mystery plots: the protagonist home alone who investigates that sound in the basement, the detective who refuses to wait for backup, the careless bon vivant who parties with dubious companions, or the career criminal set for one last big score. 

No, I am thinking of that great asset for private detectives and clever consultants: a properly stupid police presence. Note the restrictive, 'properly'. Getting a fictional lawman who is dense enough to need help but solid enough to be useful is a delicate literary trick.

 Consider how convenient it is for Sherlock Holmes that his London is served by Inspector Lestrade. Or how nice for Poirot that Inspector Japp is so often puzzled by the case at hand. I needn't even mention those dull chaps, alternately confused and dazzled  by Miss Marple, who lack the advantages of residence in that notorious burg, St. Mary Mead.

I was thinking of such useful officials while watching the entertaining Belgian series, Professor T, now on PBS Passport. It is subtitled, fortunately, rather than dubbed, but there has also been an English language remake with the same name.

In either version, Professor Teerlinck is a great mind in the Sherlock Holmes vein, with even more quirks than the sage of Baker street, including a serious germ phobia. He's a professor of criminology in Antwerp, eminent enough to get away with slovenly grading and candor to the point of rudeness. On the plus side, for someone with minimal social graces and skills, he has a lot of insight into human motivation, plus intellectual courage and a total indifference to the high and mighty. 

Amidst several off-putting habits, Professor T also has a rather endearing fantasy life, frightening and/ or  amusing visions that provide non-verbal cogitation. Professor T's an interesting creation, and Koen De Bouw does a good job of making him as sympathetic as possible.

All Professor T needs to show his brilliance is a compliant police force, and the series delivers up not one, not two, but three detectives needing help, plus their commanding officer. All good, all interesting, all well-performed, but not, I think, in the Japp or Lestrade category. And why not? In a word, they seem insufficiently stupid. 

According to his back story, Paul Rabet, the lead detective, was very successful prior to a personal tragedy – a dramatically convenient death, the skeptical viewer thinks, just before Professor T showed up. No wonder Paul dislikes the moonlighting academic.

And sparky Inspector Donckers, formerly Professor T's outstanding student, surely has the brains to get a handle on a tricky case. Even her laid back colleague, Daan de Winter, not as bright but an excellent interviewer, is no slouch. Their chief, Christina Flamant, once Professor T's lover, is a thorough, smart, and sensible leader. 

Do these people really need a Professor T? Of course, for the purposes of the series, they do, and the writers have added personal problems and a romantic subtext in an effort to cloud their minds and distract them from the clues which only the professor will notice. The results are entertaining, but until near the end of the generously long first season both the police team and the professor seem locked in their roles, with the inspectors having to run to the university, case files in hand, to enlist the great mind.

Then in a surprise, a two part episode not only concentrates on the police team but puts the professor, himself, in jeopardy. A more independent team, a more human professor? Seasons two and three will tell, but they might make an interesting series even better.