Zodiaque (TV Mini-Series 2004)

This was a pretty promising French crime thriller, the sequel series to the thriller "Le Zodiac". Claire Keim stars as Esther Delaître, an expert in the field of criminal astrology. Her brother Mathias is about to go on trial for his murders, under the codename "The Zodiac". Yet things don't go so smoothly. In order to find out how her mother died, Esther joins in the whole procedure along with criminal officers Antoine Keller (the two are reluctantly attracted to each other) and Eva Trammel (who has a disturbing link to the whole story). As the trial draws closer, the Zodiac ends up escaping thanks to a mysterious person known as the "master" of the Zodiac. Esther, Antoine and Eva have their hands full to solve the mystery before someone else dies.

Things take off on a strong foot. The writing was spotless for most of the series, a completely unpredictable plot with many nail-biting moments and cliffhangers. The acting from the cast is wonderful, especially that of Natacha Lindinger as Eva, struggling to get over her memories of being molested for three days as a little girl.

The problems with this series don't start until around the latter half, where the character of Esther just becomes incredibly stupid and reckless, wandering into dark places just asking for trouble. Also, the whole "reveal" doesn't feel that believable considering the context of the story. Perhaps Eva is the most compelling character, though Esther's underlying motive of finding out what happened to her mother gives her a lot of depth as well. It's just that halfway through the story, events take place that are quite hard to swallow.

The ending, even though it asks for some suspension of disbelief, is satisfying to watch if you bear with the story. It feels as though the story runs out of air halfway through the series and you become angry at Esther for her stupid actions (which do lead her into trouble, make no mistake). All in all, a pleasant watch but far from the most cohesively developed.