HPI Haut Potentiel Intellectuel

I've really loved this first season, and hope a second season is coming soon.

Although the commited crimes are serious, the investigation is anything but serious. But it doesn't matter. It's the way the main characters have to work with each other that makes it so fun to watch.

Lille's police force is, to put it gently, not presented as the most intelligent force on earth, the plot is very thin, the proofing is so far fetched that it isn't believable anymore.

But this shouldn't be seen as a French Morse or Lewis. Neither as more serious detectives like Vera. It's a comedy with murder victems as the red line for the clashing and attractiveness between the main characters.

So yes, as Lucien Stam already mentioned, it fits in the same category as Death in Paradise.

We started watching the US version of this show and liked it so we decided to see what the original French version was like. We watched the first episode dubbed and that was not enjoyable. Then we watched the next 3 episodes with subtitles, much better. For the first couple episodes the stories are the same as the US version but there are small changes in the plot that make a big difference. For instance, the subplot about Morgane's missing boyfriend is different and much more interesting. I also feel that the interactions between the characters are subtler and more believable. Morgane's interactions with her teenage daughter are very funny and her interactions with Adam are more complex. In the French version Adam contributes as much to solving the cases as Morgane does. He is also a little more respectful of the value Morgane adds to each investigation. He seems to sympathetic to her situation, respectful of her abilities and confident in his own. This gives his character more depth than the US version.

This rating is for the 3 first seasons.

I like the premises and the acting in the first 2 seasons, especially from the leading lady.

High Intellectual Potential is seen by many as an advantage in life. In this series, it is shown in an hyperbolic fashion. The main character has superior memory and associative intelligence that allows her to solve deep mysteries in an instant, when unrelated triggers are put in place. This is not very realistic.

What is more realistic is how possessing high intellectual potential can be detrimental in life. No one understands her, she is a constant misfit and a societal failure, in part because her super-smart aura makes everyone around her feel stupid. She is also unable to set her mind to a long-term task and stick to it. She is easily distracted and very easily bored, and so she has no qualification, no diploma, no job, no money and everyone who has tried to live with her has given up on her. She has no fear of consequences and does not care for anyone's feelings, even when people genuinely try to help her, and even for her own children. She is also very good looking and uses that to her advantage, yet comes across as uncouth and gaudy with a very poor sense of taste.

That should have made her a profoundly unsympathetic character, yet, the main actress manages to overcome all this and show that her character is actually trampled over and used by everyone to her detriment, in particular by her family, and most particularly by her father, who has the same problems as her, even worse in a way. So in the end, she is rather lovable in spite of many flaws. This is quite a feat.

So I feel this is rather a good show. The down side is that the rest of the cast is basically a support cast. No one else is remotely as interesting as she is. No one rises to her level even the various love interests with rare exceptions. There is a main story in addition to each of the episode storyline, and this is one of deep sadness and betrayal.

The third season, however, magnifies all the downsides to a point where it become an unfunny caricature. I recommend the first 2 season, not really the last one.

Audrey Fleurot makes the series worth watching. The concept is somewhat old - think Holmes + Will Hunting + saucy House and you get the idea, but after a few episodes the cast chemistry begins to show and as mentioned, Fleurot goes all-in for the quirky character. If the continues to improve, definitely worth the time.

Last night I finished watching the first season on Rai1, dubbed in Italian.

This show works.

I will get into some details to explain why and how, but in a nutshell it works simply because it does what TV should always do: entertain!

Close in spirit to Monk and The Good Cop, but even closer to The Mentalist, "HPI" delivers curiosity and fun. The premise of the series may lean heavily on the unlikely looks and attitudes of Morgane Alvaro (Audrey Fleurot) who begins to work as a consultant for the police, but what keeps your interest afloat is how well the stories are crafted.

I hate it when a cop show focuses too much on the lead characters at the expense of ignoring the credibility of the crime stories. Thankfully, HPI has not fallen into this trap. The motivations and the solid mechanisms are always there for our heroes to find out, and the interactions of Morgane Alvaro with the suspects add spice to what is basically a well-thought "whodunnit".

In that sense, my favorite episode was the 5th. The nature of the crime folded out elegantly as the investigation progressed and the loose ends got tied, and I do not recall having seen this kind of a plot before in fiction. So, even if there was some influence behind the originality there, at least it was not an overused theme.

Episode 7 was the least credible in terms of the criminal's motivation and method, but still it was okay.

Toiling over storylines and characters can at times be rewarding for the creator like in this series, but there is something else that I find notable with HPI: The colors.

The realm they present is particularly colorful and even shiny at times. Having been to Lille, yes, I can confirm it is a nice city with enough interesting locations around to feed such a series with settings. However, I think Audrey Fleurot being a "red head" also helps the plastics of the show. She is a strangely attractive woman who looks both like a time-trevelled Red Sonja and a grown-up-yet-still-childish Peppermint Patty.

As her bright red hair contributes visually to the frames, her high spirits carry the show well, also thanks to Mehdi Nebbou (Adam Karadec) who is credible as a calm, serious, yet tolerant police detective. The duo is like a gender-switched version of one of my favorite shows ever, Moonlighting.

With the lead character being a single mom of multiple children, I suspect also Candice Renoir might have been among its sources for inspiration, but HPI is definitely much better paced and more rich in texture, both visually and story-wise. The humor is well-balanced, works fine in the Italian translation and dubbing, so I don't see why there would be a notable loss with a potential English edition on that front.

As for the few downsides:

The rapid, patchwork imagery they employ to show us how Morgane's mind works... I find it too fast. She connects certain dots to reach a conclusion that makes sense, and yes, she has various references (something she read on a cereal carton, a documentary she watched, etc.) and using cut out images, clips, this and that in a pop fashion is a good idea, at least better than leaning on verbal narration. But we also need things to sink in. And speeding those particular phases up so much does not help.

Another problem I notice is kind of like an Achille's heel: When you come up with such a concept and feel the need to sharpen it, some very basic things about the title character may not add up. In this case, one can find it difficult to believe a woman as smart and as attractive as Morgane Alvaro could not find a way to reach success and wealth in 21st century France, not till some police chief discovered her abilities could be used to solve crimes. Well, she could at least write a TV show, right?

"Having problems with authority" is mentioned as the excuse to how come she ended up with three kids and low paying jobs, but nowadays whole generations have "problems with authority" and it doesn't stop anyone. The Morgane Alvaro we see could well have established something great for herself, be it in the IT business or entertainment.

Well... This is why we should not dig too deep into stuff that is supposed to be "make believe" by definition.

Overall, HPI has enough potential to go on for many seasons. And I think it deserves worldwide recognition and attention as a worthy, fun, intelligent detective show.