Saint-Pierre Review: A Gentle Canadian Cop Show Echoing Death in Paradise
If all cop shows, celebrity travelogues, and cooking competitions vanished overnight, the television landscape would risk implosion. These genres serve as the load-bearing walls that sustain the entire structure of broadcast entertainment. The sheer volume of such programming inevitably leads to tiny, specialised niches within each category. Take the Canadian crime drama Saint-Pierre, for example. Have you ever pondered what a slightly grittier version of Death in Paradise might resemble? If so, you are in luck.
Familiar Faces and New Settings
To enhance the sense of familiarity, Death in Paradise alumna Joséphine Jobert appears in Saint-Pierre, co-starring as deputy chief Geneviève Arch Archamboult. She portrays a Parisian police officer who, for reasons that gradually unfold, has been relocated to the tiny north Atlantic French territory of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon. Joining her is another mildly troubled newcomer, Allan Hawco as Royal Newfoundland Constabulary inspector Donny Fitz Fitzpatrick. This detective has been sidelined into obscurity after investigating too vigorously into the nefarious activities of a politician in his previous role. Predictably in this context, he grapples with a difficult private life, lending him a slightly dishevelled demeanour. He also suffers from seasickness, which proves less than ideal given his new posting on a small island. Almost immediately upon introduction, he is seen vomiting his breakfast into a nearby rockpool, with locals showing little sympathy.
Crime and Character Dynamics
In fairness, Fitz does not make himself easy to like. He habitually begins sentences with Where I come from, a tactic unlikely to endear him to the local force. However, he is swiftly thrust into crime-fighting chaos. According to Wikipedia, the eight islands comprising Saint-Pierre and Miquelon have a population of approximately 5,500 people. Based on this series, one must assume that roughly one in twenty residents are murderers, with many others engaged in fraud, drug-running, religious extremism, or gangsterism. It is a very picturesque but evidently perilous locale, making it the law enforcement equivalent of a naughty step for Fitz.
His inaugural case involves the murdered leader of a religious community, featuring a nicely staged and lit body in a church. Intrigue surrounds a craft honey-trafficking operation—highlighting how even wholesome pastimes are twisted into criminality—and a partner of the victim poised to inherit everything. She pleads innocence, but inconveniently, a gun she purchased online is discovered at the murder scene. The case resolves briskly, allowing Fitz to partially earn his spurs and establishing the show's format.
Formulaic Yet Inoffensive Appeal
Saint-Pierre follows a crime-of-the-week structure, supplemented by mild character development and an underlying storyline about islander Sean Gallagher, portrayed by James Purefoy, who is clearly a villain with direct ties to the police department. The dialogue often feels desperately clunky, with exchanges like Who changes their name? followed by Someone with something to hide! It is formulaic to the point of self-parody, with conclusions always neat, typically involving a perpetrator outlining their evil plan and nearly proclaiming they would have succeeded if not for meddling investigators. Each episode concludes with Arch and Fitz, having solved the case, engaging in gentle banter, sparring about their mysterious pasts before having an extremely mild disagreement. This represents the traditional conversational dance of minor cop shows, drip-feeding just enough personal information to maintain audience engagement.
Yet, Saint-Pierre is not terrible; it is too inoffensive for that. The lead couple share a sweet, albeit overfamiliar chemistry, teetering on the line between mutual irritation and fondness—a factory setting for counterintuitively functional fictional detective duos since television's inception. The location is intriguing and picturesque, with backstories unfolding engagingly. The series shines brightest when Fitz's hidden trauma about his lost family seeps into his professional life, hinting at potential for a new micro-genre like creepy-cosy crime. However, it likely will not push boundaries further, content with its identity and place in the television ecosystem, which always accommodates one more gentle cop show.
