The Returned

So, 'Twin Peaks' clones turn out to be like buses: you wait twenty years for a slow-moving multi-part television drama with eerie music about weird goings on in an isolated mountain community, and then two come along at exactly the same time. I'm thinking here of Jane Campion's 'Top of the Lake' and this French version, 'The Returned'. 'The Returned' has a brilliant score (by Mogwai), understated, high quality acting, stunning background scenery, a dark mood (the sense of humour in Lynch's series is completely absent), cool French teenagers, and an ever growing army of de-facto zombies who the living would rather make-believe are all in the mind. But it's certainly not a thrill-a-minute, nor is it clear how much depth there is behind the surface, and in some ways these two problems are linked: each episode may hint at the explanation to come, but its real purpose is stretching out the mystery. In the end, it was this absence of substance that did for 'Twin Peaks'. For one series, 'The Returned' was pretty good. But I fear that another might merely prove dull.