Old Soul, New Streets, Same Instincts

Read Time:5 Minute, 9 Second

MOVIE REVIEW
Maigret – Season 1
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Genre: Mystery, Crime, Drama
Year Released: 2025
Runtime: 6 x 60m episodes
Cast: Benjamin Wainwright, Stefanie Martini, Blake Harrison, Reda Elazouar, Kerrie Hayes, Shaniqua Okwok, Rob Kazinsky, Nathalie Armin
Where to Watch: Maigret premieres Sunday, October 5, at 9/8c on MASTERPIECE Mystery! on PBS, with a weekly rollout to follow. It will also be available to stream via PBS and PBS MASTERPIECE on Prime Video.

RAVING REVIEW: MAIGRET opens with a promise: a character defined by patience and empathy dropped into a present-day Paris that rarely slows down. That recalibrating is the series’ thesis. Rather than treating modernization as a gimmick, it utilizes the contemporary setting to test what actually makes Jules Maigret distinctive—the way he listens, the space he creates for people to reveal themselves, and the stubborn insistence that justice must fit the human contours of a case, not just the letter of the law. The result is a character-driven crime drama that prioritizes quiet moments and builds its momentum through observation rather than shock.

Benjamin Wainwright’s take has a youthful edge but resists turning Maigret into a hotshot. He carries himself like someone who has learned quickly not to be impressed by surface: he clocks how a suspect avoids eye contact, how a witness repeats a phrase to convince themselves, how a subordinate’s silence might actually be loyalty, not fear. The series lets those reads matter. When he pushes, it’s rarely a raised voice. It’s a longer pause, a rephrased question, or a surprisingly gentle nudge that exposes motive rather than merely extracting confession. That approach sets a tone: this isn’t designed as a fireworks show; it’s a pressure cooker where compassion and scrutiny occupy the same room.

The update to modern-day Paris is more than set dressing. Moving between the neighborhoods and boardrooms gives the show a map of where power collects and where it hides. The cinematography tends to favor clear, readable blocking over whiplash cutting; you can follow who’s in the room, who has the upper hand, and when it shifts. Daylight scenes are crisp and unadorned, holding on faces long enough to let a lie sit with you.

As a procedural, the structure leans towards a case-of-the-week format with throughlines that build character rather than serial cliffhangers. That’s a smart fit for a figure whose method is cumulative: small details accruing into a picture. It also gives the ensemble breathing room. Stefanie Martini’s Louise is written as a presence, not an ornament. When the scripts allow, she acts as a moral counterweight—someone who knows which burdens Maigret carries home and when to keep him honest about the cost. The squad—“Les Maigrets”—is sketched with readable traits without turning into caricature: a detective who rushes to impress, one who has the ear of street sources, another who resents Maigret’s latitude with rules until they see what his latitude actually uncovers. Those dynamics are strongest when the show remembers that friction can be productive; the team isn’t there to admire him but to stress-test him.

Patrick Harbinson’s stewardship steers the writing away from puzzle-box excess and toward motive. The cases often hinge on contradictions—how a perpetrator can be both protective and cruel, how a victim can hold power in one arena and have none in another. The best hours allow ambiguity to live past the reveal. Even when the responsible party is identified, questions remain about what justice entails and who is entitled to it. That moral drag is very Simenon, and the series is at its best when it makes room for the ache of aftermath.

Performance-wise, Wainwright calibrates stillness into a tool. You see the character’s mind move without the script overexplaining. Martini gives Louise a specific gravity that resists the “worried spouse” trope; her scenes aren’t interludes, they’re recalibrations. Reda Elazouar, Kerrie Hayes, Shaniqua Okwok, and others round the edges of an ensemble that feels like a unit rather than a halo around the lead. When they challenge Maigret, the show doesn’t frame it as insubordination so much as a healthy argument about method inside an institution that often confuses results with righteousness.

This first run makes a persuasive case for keeping Maigret in the present. It’s not trying to outgun flashier crime dramas or cosplay a retro aesthetic. It’s betting that careful attention is still compelling television, and that a detective who sees people in full culpable, contradictory, occasionally redeemable—isn’t quaint; he’s necessary. The modernization doesn’t discard what readers recognize; it pressures it, asks whether empathy can survive institutional mandates, and then shows you how it might.

The series is confident from the outset, anchored by a centered lead and guided by writing that prioritizes motive over mechanics. A touch more patience in the edit and a deeper exhale after resolutions would elevate it even further. As is, it’s a humanist procedural with a modern pulse—measured, purposeful, and quietly gripping.

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[photo courtesy of COURTESY PLAYGROUND ENTERTAINMENT, MASTERPIECE, PBS]

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