March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. Or not. What is certain is that some of the most highly-anticipated Euro TV shows premiere on telly this month.
To see the complete list of Euro TV shows available in the US and UK, see the Euro TV Shows by Language section. Viewers in the US can check the ongoing updates of titles released throughout each month on the Euro TV Viewing Guide page.
All programs listed below are shown in their original language with English subtitles.
NATIONAL PREMIERES
Veni Vidi Vici (Sweden)
Three-time Robert Festival award winner Thomas Bo Larsen (Follow the Money, The Celebration) stars in this drama series as Karsten Daugaard — a Danish husband supported by his wife, the father of a 16-year-old daughter, and a high-brow film director. Only his artistic vision doesn’t translate on screen, his new film bombs, and he can’t get any work in the film industry. Now what?
In rethinking his life and his responsibilities (and being prodded by his family), Karsten takes a job at his father-in-law’s pig farm. What lifts Karsten out of his depression is a phone call from Vincent (series creator and director Rafael Edholm, Wallander), an old producer friend. Vincent’s offer of a job on his new project is Karsten’s ticket back into the movie business, but what he doesn’t realize until later is that Vincent works in the porn industry.
Being a porn director isn’t ideal for Karsten, but hey, it gets him back behind the camera again. It also exposes him (pun intended) to the harsh realities of the adult entertainment industry and forces him to lead a double life that endangers his family.
Produced by HandsUp Stockholm, the ten-part, multilingual (Swedish, Danish, English) half-hour drama series features Livia Millhagen (Molanders), Michael Segerström (Spring Tide, see below), and Michael Wincott (24: Live Another Day).
Veni Vidi Vici premieres in the US on Thursday, March 1, exclusively on Hulu.
La consolation (The Consolation) (France)
Two-time Cannes Film Festival awards winner Émilie Dequenne (À perdre la raison, Rosetta) stars in this made-for-TV drama as Flavie, a TV presenter suffering from unexplained dizziness and fainting spells. To find out what is causing these symptoms, she consults a psychiatrist. He suggests she’s bottling up a traumatic event from her past and proposes they look together through a photo album from her childhood, in which a picture of a sad teenager brings to the surface Flavie’s repressed memories.
Costarring Léa Drucker (The Bureau), Xavier Mathieu (Baron Noir), and Hervé Pierre (Spin), La consolation premieres in the US on Friday, March 2, at 8:30 PM ET / 5:30 PM PT, on TV5Monde USA.
À la dérive (Adrift) (France)
Bastien Bouillon (Détectives, see below) stars in this telefilm as Jérôme, a man who kills his former best friend Driss (Foëd Amara, Spiral), a Moroccan, soon after joining the far-right political party. Whether it was an accident or an act of premeditated murder brought on by jealousy or racism, Jérôme refuses to say. What is revealed through flashbacks, though, is the story that began five years earlier.
Costarring César Awards nominee Frédéric Pierrot (The Returned), Marie Kremer (Un village français), and Antoine Duléry (Les petits meurtres d’Agatha Christie), À la dérive premieres in the US on Saturday, March 3, at 8:30 PM ET / 5:30 PM PT, on TV5Monde USA.
Détectives: Season 2 (France)
César Awards nominee Philippe Lefebvre (Tell No One) and Sara Martins (Meurtres en Martinique) star in this quirky mystery-crime dramedy, which won the Best Drama Series award at the 2014 Festival de la Fiction TV de La Rochelle, as Philippe Roche and Nora Abadie. He’s been running the Roche and Son detective agency into the ground, and she’s a former national intelligence officer brought in by Maxime (Jean-Luc Bideau, The Churchmen), Philippe’s now-retired father, to save his namesake company from ruin.
In the Season 2 opener, “Abus de faiblesse” (Abuse of Weakness”), a childhood friend contacts Philippe for help. She suspects her mother is being influenced by a 25-year-old man, and wants Philippe to find out if the the two are having a fling or if the guy is a fraud taking advantage of her mum. Meanwhile, Maxime and Santo (Vincent Escure, La Smala s’en mêle), Nora’s assistant, help a friend whose grandson, already subject to a suspended sentence, is accused of a string of thefts.
Series regulars include Sébastien Libessart (Maison Close), Daphné Chollet (Julie Lescaut), Natasha Cashman (Chéri), Vanessa David (Workingirls), and Romann Berrux (Outlander).
Détectives: Season 2 premieres in the US on Saturday, March 3, at 10:30 PM PT / Sunday, March 4, at 1:30 AM ET, on TV5Monde USA.
(For stateside viewers who haven’t see the first season, it’s available for streaming on MHz Choice, the MHz Choice channel on Amazon, and Amazon Video.)
Accusé: Season 1 (Accused) (France)
Each episode of this anthology series features a standalone story in which an ordinary man or woman stands accused of a crime, whether by the law or someone affected by the crime.
The series opener, “L’histoire d’Hélène” (“Hélène’s Story”), centers on Hélène (Clémentine Célarié, Les bleus: premiers pas dans la police), whose son dies in a car accident. Devastated, she challenges the official conclusion that he had been driving under the influence, since he had promised he would stay sober. Hélène is convinced another driver was involved, so she conducts her own investigation, determined to find the perpetrator and to extract a confession.
Starring as the eponymous characters in the rest of the Season 1 episodes are Lorànt Deutsch (No Second Chance), Pascal Légitimus (Direction générale de la VDM), Isabelle Gélinas (Fais pas ci, fais pas ça), Bruno Wolkowitch (Spin), and Hélène de Fougerolles (Le secret d’Elise).
Accusé: Season 1 premieres in the US on Tuesday, March 6, at 11 PM ET / 8 PM PT, on TV5Monde USA.
Blochin (Germany)
Set in 2014, this gritty, complex crime thriller miniseries stars Berlin International Film Festival award winner Jürgen Vogel (The Free Will, Shades of Guilt) as Blochin, a street-wise cop with a criminal record and a mysterious past who works for Homicide Division 7 of the Berlin Police. One of his coworkers is Lt. Dominik Stötzner (Thomas Heinze, Marie’s Mind for Murder), the straight-laced brother of Blochin’s wife Inka (Maja Schöne, Dark).
The two men have little to nothing in common outside of family, until a murder case sets off a chain of events that makes them partners in crime as well as law enforcement colleagues. As the story unfolds, Blochin and Stötzner become embroiled in political intrigue, encounter menacing figures from Berlin’s criminal underworld, and fend off threats of all sorts — all while Blochin pieces together fragments from his past that shadow him in the present.
Created and directed by Matthias Glasner (Cenk Batu), the miniseries features Jördis Triebel (Babylon Berlin), Godehard Giese (The Same Sky), Carol Schuler (The Undertaker), Agnieszka Piwowarska (Bukow and König), and Christoph Letkowski (Tatort: Borowski)
Blochin premieres in the US and Canada on Tuesday, March 6, exclusively on MHz Choice, and in the US on the MHz Choice channel on Amazon.
Borderliner (Grenseland) (Norway)
Tobias Santelmann (Acquitted, The Heavy Water War/The Saboteurs, Eyewitness) stars in this crime thriller as Nikolai Andreassen, a detective in Oslo who grasses on a corrupt colleague and returns to his hometown near the Swedish border to ride out the media storm. But instead of a relaxing few days visiting family, Nikolai becomes embroiled in a homicide case that involves them. What’s an honest cop to do?
Break the law, that’s what. Nikolai covers up the involvement of his younger brother Lars (Benjamin Helstad, Young and Promising, The Saboteurs), also in law enforcement, to protect him and his two young children. But fellow detective Anniken (Ellen Dorrit Petersen, Acquitted, Handle with Care) suspects foul play and continues to investigate, despite Nikolai’s attempts to thwart her efforts. Having crossed over to the wrong side of the law, Nikolai slides further down a slippery slope where so-called justifiable crimes result in unjustifiable consequences.
A production of Monster Scripted (Nobel, Young and Promising), the eight-episode series features Bjørn Skagestad (Mammon), Eivind Sander (Headhunters), Frode Winther (Struggle for Life), Morten Svartveit (Occupied), Ellen Birgitte Winther (Valkyrien), Ana Gil de Melo Nascimento (Jordskott), Gine Cornelia Pedersen (Young and Promising), Ole Christoffer Ertvaag (The Last Kingdom), and Vegar Hoel (Occupied).
Borderliner, a Netflix Original series, premieres in the US and UK on Tuesday, March 6, exclusively on Netflix.
The Bridge: Season 4 (Final) (Bron/Broen) (Sweden/Denmark)
Let’s have a huge, virtual group hug for this Nordic noir crime drama, one of the best series ever, because it is ending its run and taking one of the most beloved characters off telly forever: Saga Norén (Sofia Helin, The Same Sky, Arn: The Knight Templar).
The final season opens nearly two years after the events in the Season 3 finale. Saga is in prison and Henrik Sabroe (Thure Lindhardt, Flame & Citron, The Spider) is investigating the murder of a woman with his colleague Jonas Mandrup (Mikael Birkkjær, Borgen, The Killing). Following her release, Saga partners with Henrik on the homicide case while continuing her off-hours investigation into the years-long disappearance of his two daughters.
Meanwhile, two thieving and homeless teen-aged girls don’t realize they are linked to the murder, a sociopathic husband stalks his abused wife and son, and Henrik attends NA meetings. More killings follow, as do leaks from someone in the Copenhagen Police. And Saga does something that upsets Henrik so deeply, it shatters their friendship.
Returning for the final season are series regulars and recurring cast members Rafael Pettersson (Arne Dahl), Sarah Boberg (1864), Gabriel Flores Jair (Wallander), Maria Kulle (Crimes of Passion), and Julie Carlsen (The Killing).
Guest stars include Thomas W. Gabrielsson (The Protectors), Sandra Yi Sencindiver (2900 Hapiness), Anders Mossling (The Eagle), Fanny Bornedal (1864), Iris Mealor Olsen (Below the Surface), Erik Lönngren (The Sandhamn Murders), Lisa Linnertorp (The Fjällbacka Murders), Selma Modéer Wiking (Mysteriet på Greveholm – Grevens återkomst), Elliott Crosset Hove (Follow the Money), Leonard Terfelt (Wallander), and Lars Ranthe (Dicte).
The Bridge: Season 4 premieres in the US on Thursday, March 15, exclusively on Hulu.
The final season will screen in the UK on BBC Two (not BBC Four, which aired the previous three seasons). Stay tuned for updates about the debut date.
The River (Elven) (Norway)
Based on actual events, this crime drama stars Espen Reboli Bjerke (Mammon, The Heavy Water War/The Saboteurs, Eyewitness) as Thomas Lønnhøiden, a cop and an outsider who encounters much resistance in his investigation of a young girl who mysteriously vanishes.
The girl’s disappearance follows her discovery of a severed hand in the river behind her home in the small village of Djupelv, located in northern Norway near the Russian border. Those battling against Lønnhøiden and obstructing his investigation are the residents of the tight-knit community in Djupelv, who are adamant about keeping the truth about their past a secret. Despite warnings from the locals and members of the military, Lønnhøiden continues to dig for the truth in what becomes a murder investigation.
A production of Arctic Wonder for Norway’s TV3, the eight-episode series costars Ingebord Raustøl (Maniac, Hotel Cæsar) and features Dennis Storhøi (Nobel), Ánne Mággá Wigelius (Monster), and Stig Henrik Hoff (The Last King)
The River premieres in the US on Thursday, March 15, exclusively on Walter Presents and the Walter Presents channel on Amazon.
Tabula Rasa (Belgium)
Veerle Baetens (Code 37, Beyond the Walls, The Team, Cordon) stars in this psychological thriller as Mie, a young amnesiac. While locked up in a secure psychiatric hospital, she is visited by Detective Inspector Jacques Wolkers (Gene Bervoets, Professor T.), who claims Mie was the last person seen with Thomas De Geest (Jeroen Perceval, 13 Commandments), a man who has since gone missing.
As Mie is both a witness and the prime suspect in Thomas’ disappearance, she holds the key to solving this mysterious case. But since she can’t be released from the hospital until Thomas is found, Mie must reconstruct her lost memories and recover and confront her recent past in order to find Thomas and prove her innocence. However, the more Mie remembers, the more she starts to mistrust both the people around her and herself, because her new memories could either be real or figments of her imagination.
Produced by Caviar Films (The Out-Laws), the nine-episode series is co-written by Malin-Sarah Gozin (Connie & Clyde), Veerle Baetens, and Christophe Dirickx (The Misfortunates). It features Stijn Van Opstal (Met Man en Macht), Natali Broods (David), Ruth Beeckmans (What If?), and Hilde Van Mieghem (The Team).
Tabula Rasa, a Netflix Original series, premieres in the US on Thursday, March 15, exclusively on Netflix.
The series will screen on Walters Presents in the UK and Australia. Viewers in the UK will be able to watch Tabula Rasa this summer on Channel 4 and stream the entire series on All 4 under the Walter Presents banner.
Tension sur le Cap Corse (Tensions on the Cap Corse) (France)
César Awards nominee Amira Casar (La vérité si je mens!) stars in this made-for-TV crime drama movie as Commander Gabrielle Monti, whose first case since returning home to Bastia, Corsica, is the murder of a shady businessman found on the jetty in the port of Toga.
The investigation puts Gabrielle on a tightrope between the past and the present both professionally and personally: Her father, Judge Xavier Monti (two-time César Awards winner Richard Bohringer, Le grand chemin, L’addition), had once suspected the victim of blackmail and murder, and Gabrielle has had a conflicted relationship with her father since the death of her brother thirty years ago.
Featuring Philippe Corti (Mafiosa), Yoni Nahum (Dealer), Jean-Emmanuel Pagni (La vie devant elles), and Alain Fromager (The Frozen Dead), Tension sur le Cap Corse premieres in the US on Friday, March 16, at 8:30 PM ET / 5:30 PM PT, on TV5Monde USA.
Tandem: Season 1 (France)
This crime drama series stars Astrid Veillon (Magellan) and Stéphane Blancafort (Barbara’s Law) as Commander Léa Soler and Captain Paul Marchal, a divorced couple who still work and raise their two children together.
In the series opener, “Nouveau depart” (“New Start”), a woman´s body is found in the vineyards, her eyes hideously mutilated. The victim had links to a local convent, so the cops must figure out how the nuns are involved in the murder. As Léa and Paul dig deeper in the case, they learn the stories of filiation, self-sacrifice, and revenge that characterized the journey of a woman with a troubled past.
Tandem: Season 1 premieres in the US on Sunday, March 18, at 11:00 PM ET / 8:00 PM PT, on TV5Monde USA.
Spring Tide: Season 1 (Springfloden) (Sweden/Germany/Belgium)
Adapted from the best-selling novel of the same name by the husband-and-wife writing team of Rolf and Cilla Börjlind (Arne Dahl, Beck), this mystery-crime thriller series follows Police Academy student Oliva Rönning (Julia Ragnarsson, The Bridge, Stockholm Stories) as she delves into a quarter-century-old cold case involving a pregnant woman buried alive on a beach on Sweden’s North Koster Island.
Olivia is working on the case for a class assignment, but when she discovers a personal connection to the 1990 investigation, she begins her own unofficial inquiry into the tragedy. The one person who could help her is Tom Stilton (Kjell Bergqvist, 30 Degrees in February, Death of a Pilgrim), the former lead investigator on the case. But finding him is going to be tricky: Tom has been living rough on the streets for years.
Plus he’s been making himself scarce, so as not to be another victim in the series of vicious assaults on homeless people in Stockholm. Tom knows some of the ones who have been attacked, and since the police seem to be lackadaisical about finding the culprits, he decides to take the matter into his own hands — just like Olivia is doing with the beach case… until she and Tom finally do team up.
Produced by Filmlance International in cooperation with SVT, Film Väst, NADCON, Lumiere, and ZDF, the ten-part series features Helena Bergström (Missing), Johan Widerberg (Modus), Cecilia Nilsson (Maria Wern), Peter Carlberg (Real Humans), Dag Malmberg (The Bridge), Kjell Wilhelmsen (Blue Eyes), Görel Crona (Anna Holt), and Dar Salim (Dicte).
Spring Tide premieres in the US and Canada on Tuesday, March 20, exclusively on MHz Choice, and in the US on the MHz Choice channel on Amazon.
Les brumes du souvenir (The Mists of Remembrance) (France)
In Verdun, in the heart of the infamous red zone ravaged during the First World War, the mayor of the deserted district of Bezonvaux is murdered. Captain Clara Merisi (Gaëlle Bona, Dead Beautiful) of the Nancy regional judiciary police leads the investigation, accompanied by forensic anthropologist and historian François Gilbert (David Kammenos, Braquo) of the Douaumont ossuary.
A few days later, François unearths a body close to the crime scene. It is the corpse of a woman who vanished in the 1980s. Clearly, she was not a victim of World War I, but history and the ghost town-like nature of the area has kept this tragedy hidden for thirty years. Until now.
Featuring Oscar® nominee Marie-Christine Barrault (Cousin cousine), Mhamed Arezki (Tony’s Revenge), Didier Flamand (The Passenger), Pascal Elso (Marseille), and Robert Plagnol (Résistance), Les brumes du souvenir premieres in the US on Friday, March 23, at 8:30 PM ET / 5:30 PM PT, on TV5Monde USA.
Couleur Locale (Local Color) (France)
Three-time César Awards nominee Isabelle Nanty (Amélie) stars in this dramedy teleflm as Marianne, a conservative and racist business owner in the south of France. A widow who hasn’t seen her daughter Charlotte (Sarah Biasini, Suite noire) for 15 years, but has been angry with her this entire time, Marianne lives alone and fills her days with work and town council activities.
Then Charlotte calls one day and informs Marianne that she’s a grandmother. There’s more: Because Charlotte is extremely ill and needs hospital treatment, her 12-year-old son Nicolas (Valentin Bellegarde-Chappe, Meurtres en Bourgogne) is on his way to stay with Marianne. What his nan doesn’t realize until Nicolas arrives is that he is a mixed-race boy.
Featuring Christian Bouillette (Paris), Marie Piton (Research Unit), and Henry Courseaux (Nestor Burma), Couleur Locale premieres in the US on Friday, March 30, at 7:30 PM ET / 4:30 PM PT, on TV5Monde USA.
ADDED TO PROGRAMMING SCHEDULES
Back to Mom’s (aka I’m Going Home to Mum) (Je retourne chez ma mère) (France)
This made-for-TV comedy movie centers on François (Pierre Cassignard, Pauline’s Law), a 40-year-old man who has been without a job for some time and is now without a wife and a home following a divorce. All he has now is his mum Alice (Annie Cordy, Chefs), so he returns to his hometown to live with her so he can get his life back on track.
But this isn’t as straightforward as it sounds. Firstly, François doesn’t want Alice to know about his situation, so he concocts a story about having gotten a job with a local company and tells more lies from there. Secondly, Alice has annoying habits (like telling him off). And thirdly, as she worries about and pampers François, Alice also catches on to his lies.
Featuring César Awards nominee Rufus (Amélie), Peggy Leray (The Disappearance), and Ludovic Berthillot (Wasabi), Back to Mom’s begins airing Thursday, March 22, at 9 PM ET, on Eurochannel.
(The movie is also available for streaming in the US on Amazon Prime Video.)
Chase (1, 2, 3 voleurs) (France)
This telefilm revolves around Luis (Nicolas Cazalé, Match Day), a recently-divorced guy who’s stuck in a job that pays the bills but does little else. Unmotivated by his work and discouraged about his life, Luis decides to steal the armored car that he drives and make off with the five million euros held within it.
Life is supposed to be better as a millionaire, but for Luis it’s worse. Not only are the police after him, so are the media, the mafia, and a bloodthirsty gang leader who was planning a hit on the same vehicle. Luis needs help and fast, so he turns to two childhood friends who happen to be lawyers: Emma (Isabelle Carré, Romantics Anonymous) and Sam (Olivier Sitruk, Lanester). Now they are in danger, too, and must choose whether to defend Luis or to let him face the consequences of his actions alone.
Costarring César Awards nominee Reda Kateb (Django, Spiral) and featuring Laurent Bateau (Vanished by the Lake) and Steve Tran (The Mantis), Chase begins airing in the US on March 24, at 9 PM ET, on Eurochannel.
(The telefilm is also streaming in the US and in the UK on Amazon Prime Video.)
Mafia Undercover: Season 1 (Solo) (Italy)
Marco Bocci (Anti-Mafia Squad, Romanzo Criminale) stars in this crime drama miniseries as Marco “Solo” Pagani, an undercover agent who has infiltrated the Italian Mafia for a mission to take down the Corona family, a powerful clan in the ‘Ndrangheta, one of the world’s most notorious criminal organizations. The family controls the port of Gioia Tauro, the largest gateway for illegal trafficking in the Mediterranean, and top capo Antonio Corona (Renato Carpentieri, Don Matteo) and his favorite son, Bruno (Peppino Mazzotta, Inspector Montalbano), are preparing to receive a shipment of drugs from Turkey, the largest one ever headed to the Americas.
Solo’s double life is complicated by his relationships with Barbara (Diane Fleri, I liceali), his colleague and girlfriend, and Agata (Carlotta Antonelli, Suburra: The Series), Antonio’s daughter. What’s worse, Marco the cop is forced to be as violent and murderous as the mafiosi to keep his real identity a secret. Even so, not everyone in the Corona family trusts Marco…
Featuring Federico Tocci (Suburra: The Series), Pier Luigi Misasi (The Homicide Squad), Max Mazzotta (Palermo Connection), and Francesco Acquaroli (Suburra: The Series), Mafia Undercover airing in the US on Tuesday, March 27, at 9 PM ET, on Eurochannel.
(The miniseries is also streaming in the US and in the UK on Amazon Prime Video.)
Duel (Les François) (France)
This comedy telefilm centers on two guys named François. One is a grumpy pensioner in his 60s (Daniel Russo, Blood of the Vine) who lives secluded in a big house in the countryside. The only company he accepts is that of Reine (Marie-France Alvarez, Le Week-End), his cleaning lady. The other is a more adventuresome 21 year-old (Issame Chayle, Détectives) looking for new opportunities in life.
One day the younger François knocks on the door of the elder one, offering to look after the latter’s garden for a couple of euros. After much discussion, he accepts and also offers the young man a place to stay. So begins their friendship, which is fraught at first but grows into a strong bond. The elder François has found the son he never had, and the younger one has found the father he always longed for.
Featuring Nozha Khouadra (Marseille), Duel begins airing in the US on Thursday, March 29, at 9 PM ET, on Eurochannel.
(The telefilm is also available for streaming in the US on Amazon Prime Video.)
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For details about the March premieres of shows from the UK, Canada, and Ireland, visit The British TV Place. For those about the debuts of programs from Australia and New Zealand, visit The Down Under TV Place.
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