PBS has long been a great resource for expat Brits to get their fix of great British shows, and since the public broadcasting giant moved into on-demand streaming back in the summer of 2020, we’ve had even more choice from the back catalogs of the BBC, ITV, and leading British channels.
Debuting on February 4th are all three seasons of The Tunnel, the acclaimed Anglo-French production which centers on the investigations and relationship between British detective Karl Roebuck (Stephen Dillane) and French detective Elise Wassermann (Clémence Poésy). The pair are forced to work together when crimes involving both countries are committed.
Season 1 follows Karl and Elise as they investigate a dismembered body on the border of both countries in the Channel Tunnel. Season 2 has Karl and Elise reunited to investigate a case where a French couple have been abducted from the Eurotunnel. And Season 3 is set in a mid-Brexit Europe where the English and French teams come together once more in the emotionally charged finale when a stolen fishing boat is found adrift, on fire in the English Channel.
Based on the original Danish-Swedish collaboration “The Bridge,” The Tunnel garnered a devoted following in Britain, were fans were as much intrigued by the intricate plots as by the stark contrast between the British and French detectives forced to cooperate when a dead politician is found lying neatly across the two nation’s boundary line. And The Chunnel itself makes a brilliantly creepy location.
Dillane’s Karl is a jokey, flirty, blokey Brit who – surprise, surprise – is left confounded by his po-faced French counterpart. The murder heralds a spate of killings and snowballs into a web sensation as the politically motivated serial killer – known as the Truth Terrorist – highlights social injustices on a deadly chessboard. Targets include teenagers involved in the 2011 England riots, pensioners in a Folkestone retirement home, department stores accused of using child labour, and a suitably viperous circle of financiers. It’s all so devilishly well done that even viewers who have seen The Bridge will find plenty to enjoy. It’s certainly no less gripping or scary.
It’s not just the acting that’s stunning. There’s the backdrop too – on either side of the Channel. The Kent coast looks delightful, while Calais, that perennially passed-through town, is no less beguiling. With all the dashing back and forth, sometimes you can’t tell which side of the Channel you’re actually on. Ultimately, The Tunnel tells us, we’re all pretty much the same – even the British and the French.
But while we may find The Tunnel riveting – I certainly did – lead actor Dillane can‘t bring himself to watch it, or the bigger recent TV show for which he is most well known, Game of Thrones, because of the violence. When the show was initially released, he told the Sydney Morning Herald: “I’m nearly 60 years old. It seems that people have a much higher tolerance of these things than I do and that’s fine. I’m a little suspicious of it in myself. If I watch Fear the Walking Dead, I can tell that after watching a man put an ice axe through another man’s eye, my relationship to that changes. At first I can’t watch it and within half an hour it’s meaningless to me. I’m not sure that I think that’s a great idea.”
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