Ian Rupert I binge watched this in about three days recently while on a small MEW kick. I can't understand why nobody watched this show, I thought it was great. The characters were great and well acted, the story was great, it had great pacing and kept you wondering. I knew going in that there was a cliffhanger ending and no season 2. I feel bad for the people who were watching when it was actually on, and didn't know it would be left without anything close to an ending to the story. I see the usual jabs taken at Americans in the negative reviews. I guess that's the cool thing to do these days. Bash Americans and act superior for liking the original more. I am American and have no problem watching foreign movies and shows, but a lot of people don't like subtitles and if a show isn't on their normal networks, they usually don't seek it out. If people didn't watch this one enough to keep making it, do you really think the French version would have drawn in more viewers? I doubt it. It's all about viewers and viewers = money. I liked the story, so I WILL seek out the French version. People shouldn't be so mad about the US version, I am sure it did nothing but bring more viewers to the original series. So, go easy on it.

russ-29964 My partner & I loved this series. We eagerly waited for each weekly episode release on Netflix.We got several of our friends hooked on this show too. After seeing every episode an wanting more, we obtained the french older version once shown on channel 4 which although was OK we preferred this version an really wished they has carried on with more seasons of this show. As this version is very watchable an better than a lot of stuff on TV. The acting is superb, Drama is gripping People cast in the roles are well suited to their characters. Not too much violence or swearing just good acting with a good plot and good scenes an sets.

pmmacdonell-459-527156 I watched the French version first. (I don't know French but I know how to read subtitles unlike some other review.) I liked the French one a lot. It was Breaking Bad good as far as I was concerned. Needless to say I liked the French one better but was willing to give this one a shot. I thought Sandrine Holt was a wonderful Julie. And the actress who played the twins mother was very good. None of the others stood out but it was okay. I loved the French one and really wanted to see how this would turn out. I ended the experiment when I discovered how they changed the character of Madame Costa. In the French version she was this sexy, nihilistic, wise-cracking, tough, sort of scary middle aged woman. The Americans got Michelle Forbes to play her American doppelganger, Helen Goddard. I thought that that was a perfect fit. And if they let Forbes play the Madame Costa character it would have been great. However they decided to Americanize her by turning her into a loud, boring religious freak. They destroyed a really interesting character even though they had an actress with the capacity to play her.

justchillz I've never watched the french version as I'm not French nor am I bilingual in French. The reviews from people who are native speakers of French are extremely biased, pointless. Why on earth would a francophone speaker prefer an Americanized-remake of a French show? Why would someone from Japan prefer the English version of "The Grudge." Not everyone is into foreign movies. I find foreign movies extremely boring, unless they are in my native-European language. If you are a native-speaker of that language, you will prefer the original movie or show. It's a statistical norm and given. All these ignorant reviews do is support stereotypes about the French. If you are going to review a show, review it for why it sucks, not "the French one is better" with no explanation to backup that claim.I cannot see the french one being any better than this nonsense I sat through, hoping for some improvement at least the very end. The whole premise of the show is messed up. The part about the towns people coming back from the dead is already far-fetched, in my opinion. When Camille was the only one who came back from the dead, it seemed more interesting. Suddenly, all these people started coming back at random (or had already come back) for no reason it all. Why do only certain people come back? Why did they come back? (The boy was back four years ago, so it cannot be the impending flood.) This issue never gets sorted out in the series. Also, do these people not age after coming back from the dead, since the boy is still the same age. The boy wanted the teacher dead so he caused the bus crash, did he die and come back again, or just not age? The show is not real science-fiction, it's absurd. An entire herd of deer drown for no apparent reason (absurd example 1).Absurd example #2: A cop shoots his girl friend's (fiancé's) unarmed ex fiancé, and she just takes his side and lies to the police about him holding a knife to her. Investigators should have been able to tell from the position of her ex's body that he was unarmed. He didn't have a knife in his hand, and a knife was never shown in the episode. And how on earth could that woman walk down the isle with a man who shot her her daughter's father in cold blood in front of her. He just wanted to hug her. He had no intention of hurting her, which is clear to anyone watching the episode. She knew he loved her, but could care less was pleased the husband knocked him off. I'm certain many viewers were angry with the show after watching this scene unfold the way it had.Example 3: Another far-fetched example is authorities dropping of a six-year old, mute, potentially traumatized/disabled boy at a shelter for homeless adults. Where are the child welfare agencies? Many Eastern European countries may not have the "wonderful" foster care system we have in America today, but they have orphanages. Though I'm not familiar with French French (only Quebecois), I'm doubtful that French authorities would drop of a child at a shelter with homeless adults. The child needed serious help.Far-fetched example 4: Camille loses her virginity and for no apparent reason apart from having sex, the man turns stone-cold dead while she's on top of him. She can make out, but not have sex? What the hell? And why on earth are they so hungry, eating all the time?Every episode is all over the place. They keep switching from one story to the next every 10 minutes. Some of those scenes are so incredibly boring, it's unbearable to watch, you need a fast-forward button.The episodes never end, but just drag on. Even the season finale doesn't have an end to a story that has already dragged over 10 episodes. Does the town go under water or not? This entire season could have been filmed in three to five episodes, in my opinion. There is so much fluff, it's annoying and boring. I watched the whole season in three in a half hours - by episode 4 I began clicking the fast-forward button to only watch the mini plots unfold that were actually interesting. You need a fast-forward button to watch this, the episodes are such a mess! It's like you'd be watching four different television shows at the same time. You want to know what happens with Lena, but you have to sit through the ongoing scene with the dead boy, dead fiancé, dead serial killer, dead institutionalized women w crazed suicidal elderly man (that I fast-forwarded as this part was too boring) and etc. The lesbian kissing and sex scenes were also "too long." I had to fast-forward through them because they wouldn't end. Only about twenty minutes of each episode is interesting, worth-watching. (They fast forward through the investigation of the cop who killed the fiancé's ex, the neighbour who was murdered, but the kissing, boring talks, cat eating human flesh, and sex scenes never seem to end.) Not only are the episodes a total disjointed mess, those mini-stories skip parts and jump in time (24 years ago, 2 years ago, 1 year ago). It's already very unpleasant to be watching four different shows at the same time, but the stories also go back and forth in time.I say watch something else, or be able to fast-forward!