Saw this on the Talking Pictures channel, UK older films and TV. They showed the entire collection of the Rupert Davies Maigret episodes (BBC, early 60s) and are now showing this quirky, slow-paced French one (90s) with subtitles. We've also seen the ITV versions with Gambon in the lead (12 episodes, excellent, 1990s), and the less successful Rowan Atkinson attempts (2014, 15, or so?).
The atmosphere is very French, lots of slow thoughtful looks, and Maigret wastes few words, which fits with the books, as does the actor's rather lumbering figure. And there are subtitles, doubtless annoying for some, but done quite well.
No real complaints re the lead portrayal, except that in the books he does crack the odd joke, and has some repartee with faithful R-H man Lucas. In this however, Lucas hardly ever appears, not even mentioned in most episodes, which is STRANGE - I cannot recall a book without him featuring in some way!
This story is well known to TV viewers, both the Davies and Gambon versions covered it. This one extends the running time to almost 2 hours, and to no great effect, the other ones managed the tale in an hour, or about 85 minutes, and were just as good if not better.
Here the acting is good, the actress playing Felicie is in many scenes, and has to compete with Maigret, she has to convey her own innocence in the murder (other reviews have outlined the story) and also try to conceal what SHE believes is the likely involvement of her boyfriend and lover. Gradually Maigret, as usual, plods about and eventually discerns what happened.
One oddity is that he uses Janvier for some help (one of his team at HQ), however Janvier is played by a different actor to the chap who appeared a number of times in previous series! AND -- as I've said, a grating annoyance is that Lucas, almost a constant in the books, hardly ever appears in this version -- WHAT did he do?!