I had previously watched two seasons of the original story, "The Bridge", and found it to be excellent, if slightly depressing, viewing. In particular, I was impressed with the consistently good writing, especially for Saga (Sofia Helin) and her portrayal of a high-functioning detective with Asperger's Syndrome. I watched the first season of "The Tunnel" and found that, as mentioned in other reviews, it was a near scene-for-scene re-make of "The Bridge". As a result, it was saddled with the burden of being compared to the original by those who had seen the original.
There were deviations from the original story and many were poor choices. The choice to make the British male detective (Stephen Dillane) a much stronger character and to move the French female detective (Clémence Poésy) a little into the background was not a good decision. It made her role less important and weakened the story in so doing. They also chose to modify scenes at the end and to introduce a somewhat overwrought, out-of-character finale.
Even with the changes made to the story, it could have been better. However, the writing for tClémence Poésy was uneven and quite often clearly out of character. They made her far more sensitive than Saga had ever been (Saga wasn't uncaring, she just didn't notice most of the time.). This inconsistency weakened her impact and Clémence Poésy's performance could not make up for the poor writing choices.
I would have liked to like it better. There were some fine actors and it is a good story. But the shortcomings in the screenplay and dialogue prevented me from doing so.
Review of The Tunnel
